Ukraine's Previous President Says He Knows How to Win over Trump

Yomiuri Shimbun

4 hours ago

Serhiy Morgunov/For The Washington Post
Poroshenko at his party's office in February.
KYIV – The walls of the windowless meeting room where former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko receives his guests are festooned with mementos from his political glory days – particularly those celebrating his past relationship with President Donald Trump.
Poroshenko is seeking to leverage that experience to rebuild his political profile as the man who can deal with the mercurial American president, especially since his chief rival and Ukraine's current leader, President Volodymyr Zelensky, has struggled to secure lasting support from Trump.
But Poroshenko, a businessman whose candy empire made him a billionaire, will have to clear his name first.
Elected amid a wave of pro-Western sentiment in 2014, he later persuaded Trump to become the first U.S. president to arm Ukraine with lethal weapons. In 2019, he lost his reelection bid to Zelensky – a comedian known for playing a president on TV – and a feud has simmered between the two men ever since.
Earlier this year, Ukraine slapped sanctions on Poroshenko, who is now opposition leader in parliament and widely believed to be eyeing another presidential run whenever a ceasefire is reached and Ukraine can safely organize elections.
He has already been subject to multiple corruption investigations. Ukraine's state security services said the latest sanctions were based on allegations of threats to national security, which Poroshenko denies. The day before the sanctions were announced, Zelensky warned a decision had been made that was about 'protecting our state and restoring justice.'
The sanctions have restricted Poroshenko from accessing his bank accounts. He has also been banned from travel, penalties that he says are politically motivated and intended to diminish his influence and that are only harming Ukraine. Poroshenko is now fighting them in court.
In the meantime, he insists Ukraine's ongoing negotiations with Russia and its dealings with the United States must include opposition voices like his – or they risk losing legitimacy and key Western support.
'I've worked with President Trump for more than three years and I'm proud I have a legacy of that,' the 59-year-old said in a recent interview, referring to their overlap in office from 2016 to 2019. 'Each meeting with Trump is an opportunity. An opportunity to deliver your position and to find one of joint interest. And that's why I'm demanding to be in the United States – because I want to save Ukraine.'
As one of the largest donors to Ukraine's military, Poroshenko said he fears the banking restrictions will slow the war effort by hampering his financial assistance to troops on the front lines, which he said amounts to around $1 million a week. The travel ban means he is unable to lobby for support for Ukraine in Europe and Washington.
He also fears that the sanctions against him will be used to discredit Ukraine's democracy at a time when the country urgently needs Western support.
'I hate the idea that the case of Poroshenko can be harmful for Ukraine in Ukrainian-American or Ukrainian-European relations,' he said.
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said the sanctions have so far actually helped Poroshenko politically and were 'most likely a political mistake' by the Zelensky administration 'because the electoral rating of Poroshenko and his party increased as a result, and Poroshenko received a lot of media attention.'
Still, analysts say that Poroshenko's ratings suggest any presidential bid remains a long shot and that in Zelensky's camp, the fears are more about how the billionaire might use his wealth to back other potential candidates, including those with military backgrounds.
Many expect the popular Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, who served as Ukraine's military chief until he was fired in 2024, to also make a run for office – potentially pitting him against Zelensky. He is now Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Elections delayed
Ukraine was set to have a presidential election in 2024, but the vote was delayed by the martial law imposed after the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Organizing elections during a period of martial law would violate Ukraine's constitution.
But as speculation looms over future presidential contenders, Russia has seized on Ukraine's lack of elections to try to discredit Zelensky and cast him as illegitimate. Earlier this year, Trump called Zelensky a 'dictator without elections,' stirring fears that Washington was backing Russia's claims and could tie future military support to elections.
Despite Poroshenko's own political ambitions and his public feuds with Zelensky, he has publicly supported the position that no vote should be organized before a real ceasefire. 'I'm extremely against any election during the war,' he said.
Still, he claims the sanctions – which could ban him from participation – are proof enough that there are those in government already preparing for the possibility of elections in the near future. 'I am the living evidence of that,' he said.
Anton Grushetsky, executive director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, said that even while most politicians say publicly that they are against elections, 'actually, secretly, I think all of them are preparing in case … we have a successful ceasefire for Ukraine with some security guarantees.'
Zelensky's reelection is by no means assured. In the first year after the 2022 invasion, the country – and its politicians – united behind him as a wartime leader. But a failed military counteroffensive in 2023, analysts said, created an opening for renewed criticism of his approach – including from Poroshenko's camp. Opposition lawmakers have also asserted that they are being excluded from key talks over the country's future.
Poroshenko's lawmakers in his European Solidarity party are his main avenue for criticizing Zelensky, Grushetsky said.
'As a party leader, [his] statements are quite nice, quite calm … like a responsible Ukrainian politician,' Grushetsky said. 'A lot of this dirty job is done by other party members, not by Poroshenko.'
A former Ukrainian official who worked with Poroshenko and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal politics said Poroshenko's team increasingly relies on a Trump-style narrative that if he had been in power, the 2022 Russian invasion would not have happened. Their comments amount to: 'You fools all made a mistake back in 2019. You voted for the wrong guy and now you have a war crisis.'
'I think it plays more against the stability in the country,' the former official said. 'It is trying to segregate society, and we don't need things like that.'
The Trump factor
Divisions between the two camps were on full display earlier this year as relations soured between Trump and Zelensky, culminating in a disastrous Oval Office visit in which Trump berated the Ukrainian president and canceled his meetings with him.
Many lawmakers in Ukraine saw the dressing down of Zelensky as a setup intended to discredit him in Washington. Poroshenko, however, said the confrontation – which he described as 'a catastrophe' – was the result of repeated miscalculations by Zelensky and his team in their early dealings with Trump.
But Poroshenko's own experience with Trump reveals how difficult it can be to reach any lasting political agreements with the U.S. leader.
Sitting at the head of a long table in his meeting room this spring, Poroshenko pointed at a paper framed on the wall behind him. It was the Crimea Declaration, signed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018. Russia illegally annexed and occupied the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014. Pompeo later declared that 'the United States rejects Russia's attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine's territorial integrity is restored.'
'This is a result of my foreign policy,' Poroshenko said. 'And this is not just some copy. This is original.'
But after four years out of office, Trump has returned stronger, more experienced and surrounded by a new posse of advisers. The stakes for Ukraine and the world are even higher than they were in his last term, before the 2022 invasion – and Ukraine's war has become a point of contention in U.S. domestic politics. In April, the Trump administration proposed a peace plan to Ukrainian officials that included U.S. recognition of Crimea as Russian – a direct violation of the declaration that hangs framed on Poroshenko's wall.
Still, Poroshenko said that even if some of Trump's policies have changed, his approach hasn't. 'I know Trump. … He makes a decision without any briefing from the State Department or from the Department of Defense. He very much trusts in his intuition,' he said. 'And those who go to the negotiation with him should take that into consideration. Or, if you don't like it, simply don't go.'
Poroshenko last visited Washington in February, before he was banned from travel. He met with U.S. officials and attended the National Prayer Breakfast, where Trump made a speech.
After Zelensky's disastrous Oval Office visit, Politico reported that Trump officials then reached out to opposition politicians in Ukraine, including senior members of Poroshenko's party.
When asked what was discussed in the conversations, Poroshenko paused, then replied: 'No comments.'