Two Enemies, One Warning
Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky hate each other on a personal and political level. Poroshenko, the billionaire candy magnate who is often called the "chocolate king of Ukraine," was the country's president and the head of the European Solidarity Party, which is the main opposition party. He has given his successor two important pieces of advice, and by extension, anyone who sits across from Vladimir Putin:
First, don't believe him. Second, only negotiate when you have the upper hand.
These are not abstract ideas. They come from Poroshenko's own painful experience with the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015. These agreements were supposed to stop the fighting in the Donbas, but in the end, they didn't work for anyone.
"He doesn't get Trump or Putin."
Poroshenko, who was elected president of Ukraine after the 2013–14 Euromaidan uprising that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych, who was backed by Moscow, is very worried about how the peace talks are going right now. He told POLITICO in an interview at the Munich Security Conference in February 2026 that Zelensky was wrong about both Putin and Donald Trump in a very basic way.
His first complaint was that Zelensky made a big mistake by starting talks that didn't include Europe. Even though the meeting in the Oval Office in February 2025 went horribly wrong, with a heated argument between Zelensky and Trump broadcast around the world, the Ukrainian president should have just demanded an immediate ceasefire instead of sitting down at a table where the main game was being played without Kyiv's strongest allies.
"He doesn't get Trump or Putin. We also have a problem: Trump doesn't get Putin. Poroshenko told POLITICO, "That is a tragedy for the whole world, not just Ukraine."
"Putin Doesn't Talk About Deals." He thinks about his place in history.
Poroshenko's warning is based on a description of Putin that Western leaders have been slow to accept. Poroshenko thinks that Putin is not a dealmaker looking for better terms. He is a man with a mission in history.
Trump thinks that Putin is talking to him and trying to get better terms for peace. That isn't true. Putin doesn't talk things over. He sees things in a completely different way. He wants to bring back the Soviet Union. He wants to bring back the Russian Empire. I know for sure that. He imagines what his place in history will be. Poroshenko said, "It doesn't matter how many lives are lost, whether they are Russian or Ukrainian."
This evaluation reflects the longstanding observations of analysts and intelligence experts. Putin has often used the examples of Peter the Great and other Russian rulers who wanted to expand as a guide for his own presidency. His worldview is not shaped by the transactional logic of real estate deals or corporate negotiations but by a messianic belief in Russia's civilizational destiny. He believes that Ukraine is not an independent country but a historical province that needs to be brought back into the fold.
"The Real Reason for the Territorial Demand: He Doesn't Want Territory"
Poroshenko's most shocking claim may be that Putin doesn't even really want to take more land in eastern Ukraine, the land that the Kremlin says Kyiv should give up in any peace deal. Russia wants control over the parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts that its troops have not been able to take in battle.
Poroshenko, on the other hand, thinks that the demand for territory isn't really about the land. It is a weapon that is meant to hurt Ukraine's unity. Under Ukrainian law, any territorial concession would need to be approved by a national referendum. This would divide Ukrainian society in half, with those who are willing to give up land for peace on one side and those who see any concession as a betrayal on the other.
"Putin is a KGB officer, so this is what the Russians would do. Poroshenko said, "He knows how to deal with these kinds of things."
The KGB Mindset: What It Is and Why It Matters
This isn't something I said on a whim. Poroshenko is saying that there is something very important about how Putin handles conflict: he does it not as a soldier, diplomat, or politician, but as an intelligence agent.
Vladimir Putin worked for 15 years in the KGB, the Soviet Union's feared intelligence and security agency. He joined in the middle of the 1970s after studying law at Leningrad State University. He then went on to train at the prestigious Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute. He worked in Dresden, East Germany, as a liaison officer between the KGB and the Stasi, East Germany's Ministry for State Security, from 1985 to 1990. He worked as a translator on the side. In fact, he was in charge of hiring "illegal" agents, deep-cover operatives working in the West, and running intelligence operations under Directorate S. He left the KGB in 1991 as a lieutenant colonel.
His KGB training taught him how to find and take advantage of an enemy's weaknesses, how to use false information and psychological pressure to split opponents, how to be patient and keep things vague in negotiations, and how to understand that intelligence operations can often do more than open warfare. One former KGB coworker said of him, "I'm an expert in human relations."
Putin brings these tools to the table when he talks. He doesn't negotiate to reach a deal; he negotiates to find weaknesses, to see where the other side is weak, and to set things up so that his opponent falls apart from the inside. Poroshenko's warning is that Western negotiators, who are used to the give-and-take of politics and business, won't be able to see this approach for what it is.
"Negotiation Theater" at the Geneva Talks
Poroshenko's worries came up during the most recent round of US-brokered trilateral talks in Geneva, which took place on February 17 and 18, 2026, exactly one week before the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion. The talks, which were led by Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, brought together delegations from the US, Ukraine, and Russia for a third round of talks after two previous ones in Abu Dhabi.
The results weren't very good. The second day of talks only lasted about two hours and did not lead to any progress. Zelensky said that Russia was "trying to drag out negotiations that could have already reached the final stage."" Vladimir Medinsky, a Russian delegate and Putin's court historian, said the talks were "hard but businesslike." European intelligence leaders told Reuters in private that the whole thing was "negotiation theater," a show put on by Moscow to buy time and get concessions, especially sanctions relief and business deals with the US, instead of a real settlement.
Poroshenko's criticism is based on a structural flaw in the format: European allies were in Geneva but not in the trilateral talks themselves. Delegations from a number of European countries were in the city, but they didn't take part in the talks about the future of a European war. Poroshenko thinks this is a big mistake.
"Europe has every right to be at the negotiating table because it is currently paying for Ukraine. But it is impossible to make peace without Trump and America. The United States plays an important role, but nothing will work without Europe. He said, "They can play good cop, bad cop," echoing French President Emmanuel Macron's calls for Europe to get directly involved in the peace process. He also thinks that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz should support this position.
Why American Boots on the Ground Are Necessary
Poroshenko's analysis leads him to a conclusion that goes against one of Trump's red lines. He says that if a deal is reached, Ukraine's security after the war can only be guaranteed by having foreign troops, especially American troops, on Ukrainian soil.
"This means that there are soldiers in the country." Whose troops? He said, "America's, because without it there will be another conflict."
Poroshenko doesn't say this lightly. He knows that Trump has made it clear that he will not send US troops to Ukraine. Poroshenko's point, though, is based on what has happened in every other "peace" with Russia: without a real, physical threat, any ceasefire is just a break before the next attack.
A Defense of the Precedent of Minsk
Zelensky attacked Poroshenko nonstop during his 2019 presidential campaign for signing the Minsk agreements. These deals were very unpopular in Ukraine, and Russia never really followed through on them. The agreements, which were signed in September 2014 (Minsk I) and February 2015 (Minsk II) by representatives from Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany, and Ukrainian separatists, called for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons, prisoner exchanges, and constitutional changes that would give the Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk "special status." None of these rules were fully followed.
To understand them, you need to know what they were signing. In August 2014, Ukrainian troops were surrounded and almost wiped out at Ilovaisk. In January 2015, Russian-backed troops started a new attack to take over the Debaltseve railroad hub and the Donetsk Airport. The Ukrainian army was about to fall apart. Poroshenko agreed to the Minsk framework not because he was strong, but because he was desperate to save his army from being completely destroyed.
He stands by this choice without apology. He says that he gave up much less than Putin wanted and that the agreements, even though they weren't perfect, gave Ukraine something very valuable: time.
"First, our job was to stop the threat or at least put off the war." Poroshenko said, "We had eight years to bring back economic growth and strengthen the Armed Forces. We did it." When he became president in 2014, Ukraine's military was in bad shape: it was short on money, troops, and weapons. Many people think that by 2022, with NATO training, Western weapons, and big changes to its institutions, Ukraine had built the best conventional army in Eastern Europe.
Angela Merkel, who used to be the Chancellor of Germany, agrees with this view. She said that the Minsk agreements were "an attempt to give Ukraine time" and that Kyiv "used this time to become stronger". François Hollande, a former president of France, said that the agreements "stopped the Russian offensive for a while" while the West figured out how to help Ukraine.
Poroshenko thinks that all the planning they did over the years helped Ukraine withstand Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 and avoid the quick defeat that Moscow had planned for. Russian planners reportedly thought they would win the war in 72 hours.
A Weak Home Front
Even though they both want peace, the personal rift between Poroshenko and Zelensky doesn't seem to be getting any better. During the security conference, the two men stayed at the same hotel in Munich, but they never saw each other. Poroshenko has also talked about what he calls an increasingly unstable political situation in Ukraine, which is marked by corruption investigations involving members of Zelensky's Servant of the People party and rising tensions in parliament.
He has said that the growing pressures could lead to the formation of a national unity government, which he sees as a matter of survival rather than political ambition. "I don't make any demands." I don't need any jobs. He said, "But it becomes a matter of survival for Ukraine."
The Bottom Line
Poroshenko's message from Munich is pretty clear, even if it makes things hard for Washington, Brussels, and Kyiv. Putin is not a negotiating partner in any way that makes sense. He is a trained intelligence agent who is obsessed with restoring the empire. He will use talks to stall, divide, and weaken, but he will never really compromise. The demands for land are not about land. The talks about peace are not about peace. Putin's every move is meant to break up Ukraine as a single, independent, Western-oriented country.
Poroshenko says that the only language Putin understands is strength: military strength, economic strength, and the strength of an alliance that won't break up.
The open question is whether anyone who can do something is listening.
Based on Poroshenko's interview with POLITICO, Munich Security Conference, February 2026. Additional context from Reuters, Al Jazeera, PBS, CNN, the Kyiv Independent, the Carnegie Endowment, and the European Council on Foreign Relations.