Poroshenko's diplomatic strategy

Monday 23 February 2026

In recent weeks, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has re-emerged as a forceful public voice on the conduct of the war and the diplomatic posture Ukraine and her allies should adopt towards Vladimir Putin. His remarks — delivered in interviews and public appearances — have been framed not as partisan interventions but as strategic warnings. Russia’s leader, he argues, is a product of the Soviet security apparatus; he understands strength, hierarchy and fear; he exploits ambiguity; and he reads concessions as weakness. Therefore any diplomatic strategy premised upon goodwill, incremental compromise or psychological outreach is, in Poroshenko’s telling, not merely naïve but dangerous.

These are not abstract reflections. Poroshenko governed Ukraine from 2014 to 2019, inheriting the state in the immediate aftermath of the Maidan Revolution and during the first phase of Russia’s military intervention in Donbas and Crimea. He negotiated the Minsk agreements; he witnessed at first hand the Kremlin’s oscillation between deniable warfare and formal diplomacy; and he presided over a military that had to be rebuilt under fire. His perspective is therefore shaped by direct engagement with Moscow at a moment when Ukraine’s sovereignty hung in the balance.

Poroshenko’s core proposition rests upon a biographical reading of Putin. The Russian president’s formative years were spent in the KGB. That institutional culture prized discipline, secrecy, leverage and the patient accumulation of advantage. It also cultivated a worldview in which the West was adversarial, decadently divided and strategically complacent. In Poroshenko’s account, Putin does not perceive diplomacy as a forum for mutual accommodation but as an arena for testing resolve. Agreements are instruments, not ends in themselves. Ceasefires are pauses. Dialogue is reconnaissance.

This interpretation has an intuitive appeal, particularly to Ukrainians who have experienced successive cycles of Russian negotiation followed by renewed violence. The Minsk process of 2014–2015 — brokered with European mediation — did indeed produce a fragile and frequently violated ceasefire. Russian forces and their proxies maintained pressure while Moscow denied formal responsibility. From Kyiv’s vantage point, the lesson seemed stark: ambiguity served Russia; time favoured her; Western fatigue was a strategic asset to the Kremlin.

Poroshenko therefore advocates a diplomatic posture grounded in deterrence first and negotiation second. In practical terms, this translates into three interlocking demands.

First, sustained and predictable military assistance to Ukraine, such that Moscow is convinced that battlefield advantage cannot be secured at acceptable cost.

Secondly, the maintenance and tightening of sanctions, particularly those targeting Russia’s fiscal capacity to wage war.

Thirdly, a refusal to legitimise territorial conquest through premature talks that freeze the conflict along lines favourable to Moscow.

He has further suggested that Western leaders must understand Putin not as a conventional head of state seeking compromise but as an intelligence operative seeking leverage. The implication is that personal rapport, summitry for its own sake or rhetorical overtures are unlikely to alter Kremlin calculus absent structural pressure.

How veracious is this reading? It is certainly true that Putin’s background in the Soviet security services has shaped his political persona. His public rhetoric frequently invokes themes of historical grievance, encirclement and restored strength. Russian military operations since 2014 have been characterised by hybrid tactics, deniability and calibrated escalation — all hallmarks of security service tradecraft adapted to statecraft.

Yet caution is warranted in reducing strategic behaviour solely to biography. States act not only through the personalities of their leaders but through institutional incentives, economic pressures and domestic political constraints. Russia’s war effort has been shaped by logistical limitations, demographic realities and the need to manage elite cohesion at home. To attribute every Kremlin decision to KGB psychology risks oversimplification.

Moreover, diplomacy in wartime has historically involved engagement with adversaries whose backgrounds were no less uncompromising. Negotiations with Soviet leaders during the Cold War, or with authoritarian regimes elsewhere, were not predicated upon trust but upon reciprocal interest and clear red lines. It is therefore not self-evident that engagement per se is futile. Rather, the effectiveness of engagement depends upon the balance of power underpinning it.

In this respect Poroshenko’s emphasis on deterrence before dialogue appears realistic. Diplomatic history suggests that negotiations are most productive when both parties perceive continued conflict as more costly than compromise. If Moscow calculates that time favours her — that Western electorates will tire, that aid will fragment, that sanctions will erode — then incentives for genuine concession diminish.

At the same time, a purely coercive strategy carries risks. Escalatory spirals can emerge when each side seeks to demonstrate resolve. Sanctions, while constraining, have not collapsed the Russian economy. Military assistance, though transformative for Ukraine’s defensive capabilities, has not yet yielded decisive victory. The war has evolved into one of attrition, technological adaptation and societal endurance.

Poroshenko’s remarks also intersect with domestic Ukrainian politics. As a former president and opposition figure, his interventions inevitably carry political resonance. They reinforce a narrative of continuity between the initial Russian incursion in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of 2022. They position him as a custodian of hard-earned experience. Yet they also risk being interpreted, by some, as critiques of the incumbent administration’s diplomatic tone.

Nevertheless the substance of his argument aligns with a broad consensus within Ukraine: that any settlement must guarantee security, not merely suspend hostilities. Security guarantees, NATO integration, long-term rearmament and reconstruction financing are not luxuries but prerequisites for sustainable peace. Without them, any ceasefire may resemble an armistice awaiting violation.

The realism of Poroshenko’s strategy therefore depends upon Western political will. Ukraine alone cannot impose the structural pressure he deems necessary. If allied unity fractures, if sanctions regimes erode or if military aid becomes episodic rather than strategic, then his deterrence-first model weakens. Conversely if cohesion endures, Moscow may reassess the utility of protracted war.

There is also a moral dimension. Poroshenko’s rhetoric reflects the lived experience of a nation subjected to invasion. It embodies scepticism born not of ideology but of memory. For Ukrainians, the question is not whether diplomacy is desirable — it is whether diplomacy without leverage invites renewed aggression.

In assessing his remarks for veracity one might conclude that they capture an important truth about power politics: that regimes shaped by security service culture often privilege strength over sentiment. In assessing them for realism, one must recognise that strategy is constrained by resources, alliances and time. Poroshenko’s prescription is coherent within a framework of sustained Western engagement. Without that engagement, it risks becoming aspirational.

Ultimately, the debate he has reopened is not about personality alone but about sequencing. Should pressure precede talks, or can talks generate pressure? On the evidence of the past decade, Ukraine’s experience suggests that premature accommodation yields little. Yet history also demonstrates that wars of attrition end not only through exhaustion but through negotiation anchored in credible deterrence.

Poroshenko’s intervention therefore serves as both reminder and warning. Dealing with Putin, he argues, requires clarity of purpose and firmness of resolve. Whether that assessment proves prophetic will depend less upon rhetoric than upon the strategic stamina of Ukraine and her allies in the years ahead.