Zelenskyy-Poroshenko talks reportedly began with accusations and raised voices

According to the outlet, Poroshenko waited about an hour for the meeting with Zelenskyy at the Presidential Office on Bankova Street.

Ukrainska Pravda said David Arakhamia, leader of the ruling parliamentary faction, and Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov had been in contact with Poroshenko beforehand and tried to set a certain “framework for the future conversation.”

But, citing sources, the outlet reported that Poroshenko arrived at the Presidential Office with “printouts of various memes and other materials from social media” and began complaining that Zelenskyy and his circle were systematically discrediting him.

“The words for the response came quickly: in an instant, the conversation moved to raised voices and to the one irreplaceable form of the enemy’s cultural presence — Russian obscenities,” the publication said.

According to the report, Zelenskyy was angered by what he saw as Poroshenko’s attempt to portray himself as a victim, even though, in Zelenskyy’s view, “supporters of the fifth president behave no less aggressively online and cost millions of dollars.”

The president also reportedly raised complaints about Poroshenko’s support for potential rivals to the current government, especially Ukraine’s ambassador in London, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Poroshenko responded that if the full machinery of the state and all the resources of those in power were being used against him, it was only natural that he would seek help from anyone capable of competing with the current government.

At the same time, according to the sources cited by the newspaper, the meeting gradually became more constructive despite the difficult opening. At some moments, the conversation resembled one between people potentially “capable of stepping over mutual dislike and trying to do something together for the state,” the report said.

Poroshenko reportedly did not directly raise the issue of sanctions against him, though he mentioned that they were hindering his work.

“The position was simple: if we now agree on some model of cooperation, then the issue of sanctions will, in time, fall away by itself. If there are no agreements, then any requests will make no sense at all,” a source from Poroshenko’s team told the outlet.

After the meeting ended, Poroshenko and sources from the teams of Yulia Tymoshenko and Dmytro Razumkov were left with what the report described as “a strange feeling of emptiness,” since “no one agreed on anything.”

“No one asked for anything, not even the things we were ready for. There were no concrete decisions or proposals,” a lawmaker from Razumkov’s Smart Politics group told Ukrainska Pravda.

People in Zelenskyy’s team said that was intentional: to ask for nothing and promise nothing. According to one member of the presidential team, “this first meeting was needed for something else entirely. We could not offer anything because we had a different calculation.”

More on the meetings

In May, Zelenskyy also met with the leadership of parliamentary factions.

MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak, citing colleagues, said that meeting with faction leaders “took place in a warm atmosphere.” In addition to Zelenskyy, those present included Servant of the People faction leader David Arakhamia, parliament speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk and Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov.

During the conversation, Zelenskyy allegedly said the same thing he had told the Servant of the People faction: that there is a theoretical possibility of ending the active phase of the war by November, Zheleznyak wrote.

He said no personnel issues or requests related to voting were discussed. Each meeting lasted 25 to 30 minutes.