The president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized the essay, comparing the Putin's view on the brotherhood between the nations with the story of Cain and Abel.[16] The ex-president Petro Poroshenko also sharply criticized the essay, describing it as a counterpart of the Hitler's Sudetenland speech.[17] According to the Ukraine's envoy to UN, "fables about the 'one people' ... have been refuted in Donbas battlefields".[18]