“It has become a tradition,” Petro Poroshenko said. “I come to work, take the doll and think what I must do today to protect the country.”
The doll was a gift from Ukrainian soldiers fighting at Donetsk airport, one of the key flashpoints in eastern Ukraine's half-frozen conflict. Soldiers die there almost daily despite a shaky ceasefire deal concluded in September.
The "cyborg" nickname given to Ukraine's volunteer fighters and soldiers, Poroshenko said, has "become [a symbol] of the unflappability of the Ukrainian spirit."
![The "cyborg" nickname given to Ukraine's volunteer fighters and soldiers, Poroshenko said , has "become [a symbol] of the unflappability of the Ukrainian spirit."](http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-12/8/7/enhanced/webdr02/enhanced-27971-1418041063-1.jpg)
It remains to be seen whether the advice the doll gives him is any good.
Immediately after meeting the soldiers from Donetsk airport, Poroshenko presided over a Ukrainian citizenship ceremony for Sergei Korotkikh, a Belarusian fighter in the far-right Azov volunteer battalion. Korotkikh was formerly a member of a neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Organiation and is wanted in Russia on charges of setting off a bomb near the Kremlin in 2007.
Mikhail Palinchak / Via Facebook: petroporoshenko
