In the corner of Petro Poroshenko’s Kyiv office, a large poster shows him shaking hands with Donald Trump, back in the US president’s first term when Poroshenko was his Ukrainian counterpart.
Those were happier times for Kyiv when it came to Trump: on the wall behind Poroshenko’s desk hangs a certificate, signed by Trump’s then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, in 2018, vowing that the US will not recognise the annexation of Crimea.
Now, as a newly emboldened Trump embarks on his second term, Russian control of Crimea is one of many concessions to Moscow his negotiating team is reportedly considering as part of their effort to end the war. And instead of friendly handshakes, Trump dressed down Poroshenko’s successor as president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Oval Office last month, and appears bent on forcing Ukraine into concessions.
Poroshenko, looking on, felt that White House meeting was a “disastrous mistake” by Zelenskyy. He blamed Zelenskyy’s team for failing to give him an accurate “psychological portrait” of Trump.
“He’s not an easy person, undoubtedly. He’s not Biden. He’s not a person of values. He’s a person of the deal. But you should be prepared for that, when … the future of your nation depends on the way you treat Trump,” said Poroshenko, in an interview with the Guardian.
He has been muted in his criticism of Zelenskyy since the outbreak of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 but he says recent sanctions placed on him by the Ukrainian authorities have caused him to speak out. “This is an absolutely political decision of Zelenskyy: extrajudicial, no court, no rule of law, and even without explanation why it’s happened,” he said.
The accusations come at a delicate time for Kyiv, when Trump and those in his orbit are accusing Zelenskyy of being a dictator and are demanding new elections. Most observers of Ukrainian politics say those claims are absurd and an election in wartime would be legally and logistically impossible. But many also note an increasing centralisation of power and see the sanctions against Poroshenko as politically motivated, even if polls suggest the former president is hardly a direct political threat to Zelenskyy.
The president’s team denies that the charges have any political undertones, and many in Ukraine are irritated at Poroshenko for going public with criticism at a time when national unity is paramount.
Faced with this claim, Poroshenko agreed, but said it was Zelenskyy’s fault for launching sanctions against him: “Ukraine is weak without unity and definitely Putin will use this opportunity to undermine the internal stability in Ukraine,” he said. Zelenskyy is not a dictator, said Poroshenko, but he is “leading the country towards dictatorship”.
A billionaire confectionery magnate who went into politics, Poroshenko was elected president after the Maidan revolution in 2014. When he stood for re-election in 2019, he lost resoundingly to Zelenskyy, whose main qualification for the job at that point was playing the president in a television series, but who accused Poroshenko of failing to reform the country or end the war with Russia in east Ukraine. “I am the result of your mistakes,” he told Poroshenko during an ill-tempered stadium debate.
The fractious campaign cemented a strong dislike between the two men. In 2021, Poroshenko was charged with high treason and aiding terrorist organisations, allegedly for conspiring with Russia-backed separatists early in his presidency to profit from coal sales. Many considered the charges as politically motivated.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the hatchet was temporarily buried. Poroshenko said he called Zelenskyy on the morning of the invasion and asked to see him. They later met at the presidential administration, as Russian troops headed towards Kyiv.
“I told him, ‘Mr Zelenskyy, you are not my opponent any more and I am not the leader of the opposition any more. We should save the country, we should save the nation, we should have one enemy and the name of the enemy is Putin. And his answer was, ‘I am very much happy to hear this,’” Poroshenko recalled.
That unity held for the first two years of the war. Poroshenko focused on his foundations that provides support to the military, and his faction in parliament toned down criticism of the government for the sake of wartime unity. Last month, however, the government placed sanctions on him and several other rich businessmen, freezing their assets, and now the gloves are off.
Recent reporting by Politico suggested that members of the Trump team had met Poroshenko and others in opposition to Zelenskyy, perhaps with a view to pushing for quick elections. Asked about which members of the Trump team he has met, Poroshenko said: “Many members, some publicly.” He declined to go into much detail, but recalled a meeting with Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, before Waltz was appointed to the role.
“That was a very positive meeting, because the purpose of this meeting was to explain to him, to explain to them the current situation in Ukraine, not only the political one,” he said.
Poroshenko said he was “crystal clear” in his contacts with the Trump team that there could be no elections during wartime. But as soon as a deal to end the war was done, he said, Ukraine should “stop the martial law and prepare for the election”.
The sanctions mean Poroshenko has no access to his fortune; he can’t even use a credit card in the supermarket, he said. Aides said that for now his foundation, which provides equipment to soldiers at the frontline, is still receiving hardware bought before the sanctions hit, but say they do not know what will happen afterwards.
According to Poroshenko, the main goal behind the sanctions is to stop him from running in elections. “Definitely part of it is personal hatred, this definitely exists. But this is just to clean up the political landscape … I cannot open the account for the election, and that’s why this is an attempt to withdraw me from the election,” he said.
Polls suggest Poroshenko would have little chance of winning free elections, with a majority of Ukrainians still viewing him negatively, though he still has a constituency of support. He regularly polls in third place, behind Zelenskyy and the wartime commander Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the ambassador to London.
Many see Zaluzhnyi as a clear favourite to win any future vote, but it is not yet clear if he wants to stand. The freezing of Poroshenko’s assets could also be a way to stop him from using his significant fortune to back another candidate, say some.
“I don’t think the country is suddenly going to start loving Poroshenko. But this is a signal to all the others as well. Today it’s Poroshenko, tomorrow it could be anyone else from big business,” said analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.
Zelenskyy aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied there was any political subtext to the sanctions and said they were a tool to stop those under criminal investigation from spiriting their money out of Ukraine.
“There are a large number of oligarchs targeted by these sanctions … The sanctions limit the possibility to remove resources from Ukraine. That’s it. And then the investigations continue. On Poroshenko, they’ve been going on for several years, and I think everything will become clear in court,” he said.
