'Get on your knees' before Putin: Ex-Ukrainian leader Poroshenko says Zelensky will humiliate country to end Donbass conflict

Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has sarcastically told his successor Volodymyr Zelensky to kneel before Russia’s Vladimir Putin, believing it is the only way to achieve peace in the country's eastern Donbass region.

According to Poroshenko, who was defeated by Zelensky in a landslide vote, advisers in the presidential office believe the conflict can be ended simply by stopping the shooting. These "big experts" are mistaken, he says, as he believes an end to the fighting is impossible unless Ukraine wants to be embarrassed.

"This can be done in weeks," Poroshenko claimed, speaking to Kiev-based internet TV channel Espreso on Friday. "You need to look Putin in the eye… get on your knees and ask for peace."

Poroshenko appears to be mocking what he sees as Zelensky's naivete. The president has long believed that sitting down with Russia is a good step towards ending the violence.

In the former head of state's mind, the only way to end the conflict is "at the cost of humiliation."

"There is no other way for him. After all, for almost two years of his presidency, the country's defense capability has been destroyed," Poroshenko claimed.

Also on Friday, Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US, wrote on Facebook that Zelensky had failed in creating a "political environment that could contribute to a peaceful settlement of the intra-Ukrainian conflict in the South-East."

"For example, the authorities in Kiev continue to discriminate ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking citizens," Antonov explained. "The current language policy in the country that promotes Ukrainian at the expense of other languages - most notably, Russian - violates numerous international norms."

The war in the Donbass has been ongoing for over six years. In 2014, parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Eastern Ukraine unilaterally declared independence after the change of government in Kiev. Ukraine accuses Russia of occupying these territories – a claim Moscow rejects. Peacefully concluding the conflict was a staple of Zelensky's election manifesto. In late 2019, the Ukrainian president helped arrange the first ‘Normandy Format' dialogue of his presidency, the first movement towards a resolution after three years of stalled talks under Poroshenko.

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