“Following the Paris Summit of the Normandy four, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the protests [that took place in Ukraine leading up to the summit] strengthened the position of the Russian, and not Ukrainian, delegation. Of course, this is mistaken.
“Mistaken if only because the positions held by the Ukrainian delegation in Paris and the positions defended by the participants at the protests both at the Maidan and the Office of the President, were essentially the same. It was Putin who tried to persuade the Ukrainian president to capitulate. And it was the protesters who warned Zelenskyy about capitulation.
“Volodymyr Zelenskyy needs to understand that in order to defend Ukrainian interests, national unity is needed. Unity of the authorities and the opposition, unity of those who are in the offices and those who are on the streets – even more so, because in our conditions, these people often trade places.
“National unity with those who don’t care about Ukraine’s state interests will simply not work – even if many of these people voted for Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the second round of the election. There can’t be unity with people for whom it doesn’t matter what God they pray to, what country they live in, who they consider themselves to be – as long as there’s a trough. This is proven by history. …”
– Ukrainian political analyst Vitaliy Portnikov, writing on the espresso.tv website, as translated by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Daily Briefing. (The article is available in the original Ukrainian here: https://espreso.tv/article/2019/12/10/vitaliy_portnykov_protest_dopomig_zelenskomu_a_ne_zavadyv_yomu).