The previous president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, never developed a good relationship with Vladimir Putin. Poroshenko came to power after the Maidan uprising in 2014, after winning the elections. He opted radically for a pro-European course and was not inclined to comply to the letter with the Minsk agreements, which provided a settlement over the future of the Donbas. “Europe has given Putin too much leeway,” he says in his office in Kiev.