‘Act like Churchill and stand up to Russia’, says former president

Despite facing treason charges, former Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko has urged his countrymen to stand firm and united against Russia.

While president, Petro Poroshenko led Ukraine through the worst of its war years with Russia. Now he faces watching from a prison cell as the Kremlin invades, after he was charged with high treason by his successor’s government.

The case against him risks splitting the country, as it faces attack. Yet he has called on his nation to unite under a spirit of Churchillian resolve in the face of the Moscow’s “imperial” ambitions.

“Putin perceives himself between an emperor and a god,” Mr Poroshenko said in Kiev. “He thinks he can do anything he wants. He wants to recreate the Soviet Union ‘second edition’, and Ukraine is just a piece of the puzzle, without which the map can’t exist.”

Offering to advise President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration as to how best prepare the nation for war, Mr Poroshenko singled out Britain for praise as one of Ukraine’s leading allies, and exhorted his country’s fractured political elite to follow Churchill’s coalition example. “Churchill is my example in this situation. In the beginning of the Second World War he was the most active and critical of his opponents, yet he created a government of national unity. Many Ukrainian politicians should learn British history and take into account that Churchill is extremely popular in Ukraine,” he said. “Zelensky is my opponent, but Putin is (the) enemy of Ukraine. I am ready to give my shoulder to the government to support Ukraine.”

One of the wealthiest, most influential and controversial figures in Ukraine, Mr Poroshenko, 56, returned to Kiev 11 days ago from Warsaw. After a month-long absence, he is accused of a string of offences related to the purchase of coal by government enterprises from pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Officials allege the sales financed separatist forces. However, the case against him has alarmed the global community, which fears it may be a political vendetta by Mr Zelensky.

Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt described the charges against Mr Poroshenko, for which he could face up to 15 years in prison, as “clearly political” and warned the case could be hugely damaging to Ukraine. The country’s chief prosecutor avoided signing the indictment against Mr Poroshenko, and the deputy prosecutor who did so was promptly placed on the country’s unofficial Myrotvorets blacklist, accused of being a pro-Russian collaborator.

Mr Poroshenko said national unity was essential if Vladimir Putin’s ambitions were to be thwarted. “I cannot say that I like Zelensky,” he said of his presidential opponent, who beat him by a landslide in 2019. “And I am confident Zelensky doesn’t like me. But this is not of interest to the Ukrainian people. They want to see – if we have a Putin in front of our door – our unity.”

Under Mr Zelensky’s administration, Ukraine appears woefully ill-prepared for war. Despite weeks of growing Russian troop numbers to the north and east – 70 battalion tactical groups totalling more than 127,000 soldiers are now in place – and the assembly of a Russian naval force to the south, there is scant evidence of civil preparation for conflict. Troop movements are minimal; hospitals have not been issued with emergency supplies. Though some civilians have armed themselves, on ice-crusted streets from east to west Ukrainians are plodding on with their daily life.

In an address to the nation last week, Mr Zelensky said panic was itself a threat. “Take a deep breath,” he urged Ukrainians. “Calm down. Don’t run for buckwheat and matches. To all the media – remain mass media, not sources of mass hysteria.”

Despite lauding the recent supplies of light anti-tank weapons and Javelin missiles given by the UK and US to Ukraine, Mr Poroshenko noted significant gaps in his country’s military and civil preparation. The army remains underpaid, he said, the Territorial Defence Force unprepared and the military’s strategic reserve under strength.

Mr Poroshenko urged other NATO members to follow the British and US weapon deliveries, if not to redress the imbalance, then at least to alter the Russian calculations. “Ukrainian soldiers can do miracles,” he said. “Supplying them urgently is better than to supply them late. Everyone understands they are investing in their own security, not just Ukraine’s. Nobody knows where Russian troops may next appear. Helsinki, Sweden, Norway, Baltic, Ukraine, Poland, Romania. This is how Putin tests to see the West’s weakness.”

Though the Ukrainian military has vastly improved in strength and capability since 2014, its weaponry and budgeting are dwarfed in comparison with Russia. Kiev’s budget for defence procurement was 23 billion hryvnia ($1.12bn) for 2021, rising to 28 billion hryvnia for 2022. Russia meanwhile spends about 40 per cent of its $85.6bn defence budget on procurement, double that of Germany. Though some frontline units are well equipped, reserve units are often short of flak jackets and rifles. “Soldiers on the frontline receive less pay than the security guy in the supermarket,” said Mr Poroshenko. “We need to make more expenditure for organising the Territorial Defence Forces, so as to increase the price Putin pays for an invasion. Every single house should be a problem for Russian soldiers.”

The Times