Kiev Joined Minsk Peace Process Only to Build Up Army With NATO’s Help, Poroshenko Tells Pranksters
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko inspects HMMWV vehicles during a ceremony to welcome a US Air Force aircraft with the first batch of American armored vehicles at Borispol International Airport in 2015.
The former Ukrainian president is directly responsible for the over eight-year-old conflict in Donbass, backtracking on his election pledge to stem growing violence in the country’s east in the spring of 2014, and instead ramping up the war.The Minsk Peace Accords were just a ploy for time, designed to give Ukraine’s Army a breather and allow it to be built up with NATO assistance following a series of defeats against the Donbass militias, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has revealed.
“I needed these Minsk Accords to get at least four years to form the Ukrainian Armed Forces, build up the Ukrainian economy and train the Ukrainian military together with NATO to create the best armed forces in Eastern Europe, created according to NATO standards,” Poroshenko told infamous Russian pranksters Vladimir "Vovan" Kuznetsov and Alexei "Lexus" Stolyarov.
Poroshenko told the pranksters, who posed as former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, that Kiev doesn’t have the resources to win the present conflict against Russia, and suggested that the key to victory lies in Washington, not Kiev.“[Vladimir] Putin feels like a macho right now, and he still has significant resources to achieve victory…Our successes on the battlefield are not enough; this is enough to save Ukraine, but this is not enough to weaken Putin,” Poroshenko said, urging the US to ramp up the weapons aid and think up new ways to sanction Moscow.Russia has “10 times more artillery…30 times more ammunition,” and “significant superiority” in the air, according to the former president. “We need to do everything in our power to supply Ukraine with air defense systems, F-16 and A-10 aircraft, in order to at least balance the offensive potential of Russia, now we have nothing to protect our troops from air strikes,” he said.
WorldAlleged Winter Pause in Ukraine Conflict ‘Could Last as Long as Six Months’, US Report Suggests13 November, 14:46 GMTPoroshenko praised US military assistance to Kiev, particularly the Western-caliber US artillery, HIMARS, radio-electronic warfare systems, and counterbattery radar, suggesting “not everyone understands that all this success of course would have been impossible without the role, support and aid of the US.” Poroshenko also singled out the UK-delivered Spartan armored personnel carriers, and MLS Shield vehicles from Italy as weapons systems which have proven critical.Poroshenko, who made a name for himself after February by doing photo ops riding around in the streets of Kiev in a truck dubbed “Banderamobile” – a reference to Ukrainian World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, said he expects the crisis to continue until at least the spring of 2023, and that the situation “depends much less on Ukraine and Ukrainians, and much more on the wisdom of the American people.”The politician, who is also one of Ukraine’s richest men, expressed confidence in continued bipartisan support for the conflict from Washington, dismissing threats by Trump Republicans to limit or halt aid.
AmericasEx-US Senate Candidate ‘Not Optimistic’ Republicans Can Block Ukraine Aid in Next Congress15 November, 21:24 GMTPoroshenko also revealed that in January of 2022, he sent President Zelensky a letter calling for measures to prepare a defense of Ukraine from Russia’s Crimea to the Belarusian border, increase defense spending, conscript 60,000 Ukrainians, and create a special military reserve. Poroshenko said he did not get a response.The politician also pointed to fissures inside Ukraine’s domestic political elite, and accused “useful idiots” in charge of undermining unity in the country by attacking “democratic institutions” and “politicizing” the rule of law. Poroshenko accused “useful idiots” in the presidential administration of stripping him of the ability to leave the country to attend the NATO parliamentary assembly earlier this year.Poroshenko was Ukraine’s president from 2014-2019, and came to power in an unconstitutional snap election boycotted by pro-Russian parties after the February 2014 Euromaidan coup, which ousted the country’s democratically elected government and president. After leaving power, Poroshenko was slapped with over a dozen criminal charges, including tax evasion, abuse of office, and “high treason” for the signing of the Minsk Agreements.Like Poroshenko before him in 2014, Zelensky came to power in 2019 on the back of promises to the electorate that he would end the conflict in Donbass. Instead, he gave up on the idea in 2019, after thousands of ultranationalist fighters and pro-EU political forces, including Poroshenko’s allies, took to the streets of Kiev and threatened to overthrow him. Donbass was subsequently turned into a frozen conflict. The Minsk Accords were declared “dead” in early 2022 in the wake of shelling, sabotage, and sniper attacks against Donbass. Moscow launched a special military operation in Ukraine to preempt what the Russian MoD later said was a large-scale planned Ukrainian offensive against the fledgling republics.
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