Man in the Middle

摘要

Petro poroshenko, the newly elected President of Ukraine, had to control his temper on June 6 when he came face to face with Vladimir Putin. Less than three months had passed since the Russian President had annexed Ukraine's territorial jewel, the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. Poroshenko gritted his teeth and told Putin he wanted peace between the two countries, but he couldn't help confronting Putin over the landgrab. Ukraine, he told the Russian President, would get Crimea back eventually. Poro shenko recounted his meeting with Putin a few days later during an interview with Time in his office in Kiev. He wouldn't say how Putin had responded, but he insisted the Russian President's response was of little importance to him. "To be honest," he told Time, "I'm not very interested in what citizen Putin thinks of my state."