Why did Zelensky sanction his political rival Poroshenko?

Pre-election political infighting is unfortunately back in Ukraine.

No matter how you slice it, it’s impossible to hold a democratic election in Ukraine right now. Nearly a million servicemen basically can’t vote or run for office. Arranging voting for millions of Ukrainians abroad is a logistical nightmare. The front line is moving all the time, and there is no way to guarantee safety on voting day.

This reality doesn’t stop the Americans from insisting that we hold an election. Nor does it stop Ukrainian politicians, including President Zelensky, from reading for it, as was made abundantly clear by last week’s sanctioning of one of Zelensky’s political rivals.

I’m writing this hours before hopping on the train to Przemysl, a town on the Polish-Ukrainian border. It will take me two days, two trains, and two planes to get to Washington DC. I’m coming to promote what my colleagues and I have been working on the past year — ESCALATION, a podcast about the United States in Ukraine, whose trailer is live and waiting for you to subscribe and listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.

On Feb. 24, on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, I’ll be speaking at a launch event at the Brookings Institution along with my co-host Tyler McBrian and several star guests, including Fiona Hill. You can attend it in person or watch it online by RSVPing here. We’ll be discussing the show, as well as the current moment in the US-Ukraine relationship. We’d love to see you there!

With that out of the way, let’s get back to Zelensky and Poroshenko.

On Feb. 13, the Ukrainian government imposed sanctions against five Ukrainian oligarchs, including the former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.

A billionaire and leader of the European Solidarity opposition party, Poroshenko became president of Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. His family’s business fortune includes a large Roshen confectionery and an agricultural company, among other assets.

Poroshenko is the only one on the list who the sanctions will hurt meaningfully since the other sanctioned tycoons are either in prison or have fled Ukraine to Europe or Russia. Zelensky’s decree applies the full spectrum of sanctions available, which is dozens of measures including a full asset freeze and a ban on conducting financial transactions.

The decision is shocking partly because the timing couldn’t have been worse. Trump and Putin are negotiating Ukraine’s fate behind closed doors, Washington has become full of far-right goons who accuse Zelensky of being a dictator, and that is when Zelensky decides to target his political opponent? How can his government be so careless about the optics?

One theory stipulates that Zelensky may be trying to kill Poroshenko’s chances at reelection by making his life — and future campaigning — extremely difficult. This is foolish because Poroshenko is marginally popular and thus isn’t a threat. A November 2024 survey showed that only 7% of Ukrainians would vote for Poroshenko in a presidential election. Moreover, giving Poroshenko the chance to paint himself as a victim of political persecution will only make him more popular.

But what if that is the goal? Another theory is that Zelensky is intentionally boosting Poroshenko’s political capital because he knows the ex-president will never win, so by bringing votes to him, you’re basically wasting those votes. The idea is to boost candidates you know have no chance of winning, so uncommitted voters don’t end up supporting your real rival (General Zaluzhnyi, for example, who is more popular than Zelensky). The tactic has been used before in Ukraine.

Asked to comment on the sanctions, Zelensky said: “We are at war, and people are laundering money, billions of hryvnias. This has been going on throughout the entire war, it started in 2014-2015. Money laundering, trading coal with the separatists...”

There are dozens of criminal cases opened against Poroshenko, including for money laundering. In 2021, he was even charged with high treason for aiding Russian proxies in the occupied territories of Donbas. That’s what Zelensky is referring to in that comment. As president, Poroshenko allegedly supported a scheme to buy coal from the occupied territories, which essentially financed the Russian militants there. He supposedly collaborated with Viktor Medvechuk to do it, a Putin ally who used to lead a pro-Russian party in Ukraine and is now in Russia.

Zelensky also said he could undo the sanctions: “Sanctions are restrictions on the use of certain money that was earned illegally. They can return the money (to the budget) and will cancel the sanctions”.

Whatever Zelensky’s true motivations may be, the whole thing looks terrible both at home and abroad.

At home, it raises serious questions of due process and legitimacy. Sanctions are a political tool reserved for foreign individuals and entities that can’t be prosecuted through a Ukrainian legal system. They theoretically could be applied to Ukrainians if their actions threaten Ukraine’s national security or amount to terrorism and must be halted immediately. This begs the question, what terrorist or unconstitutional activity was Poroshenko in the midst of that was so dangerous that it warranted sanctions, not a court hearing?

Poroshenko is very likely guilty of many crimes, and there have been countless investigations by well-respected journalists into his wrongdoings, including the separatist coal story. Yet that story, and many other accusations, are at least a decade old. They must be properly investigated and litigated, not only because every Ukrainian citizen has a right to defend themselves, but also because Ukrainian society must see evidence and hear arguments. Sanctions do neither, and only further erode the trust in the Ukrainian legal system and government.

Abroad, these sanctions will look like a power grab or outright foolishness. They will play right into the Kremlin propaganda that paints Zelensky as illegitimate. Tucker Carlson et al. will use it as so-called evidence of Zelensky being a “dictator” who represses his opponents, as they’ve been wrongly claiming for years. All this at a time when Ukraine’s future and American aid are extremely uncertain, to put it lightly.

Regardless of Zelensky’s reasoning, one thing is clear — the Ukrainian government is eyeing election season, at a time when Ukraine is losing militarily and diplomatically. The dangerous impact will reach much further than Poroshenko and his bank accounts.