Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's actor president, prepares for his greatest role yet
In his before life – as an actor on a popular satirical TV show – he was the accidental president, a history teacher whose online rant about corruption went viral and unexpectedly catapulted him to Ukraine's highest office.
Now, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is starring in what could turn out to be the greatest dramatic role of his life. Only it's for real, as the boyish-looking 44-year-old stares down the barrel of what could be the most serious geopolitical conflict since the end of the Cold War.
No one knows for sure whether the 130,000 troops that Russian President Vladimir Putin has amassed near Ukraine's borders means that Moscow – for years frustrated at NATO's eastward expansion and Kyiv's desire to join the military alliance as well as align more closely with democracies in the European Union – will invade Ukraine. The Kremlin has dismissed as "hysteria" the White House's claim that Russia could invade its neighbor and former partner in the now-defunct Soviet Union "any day now."
Zelenskyy has been pushing back against the rhetoric coming from Western allies that an invasion is imminent. But Monday, he delivered his most sobering message yet to Ukrainians that they had better prepare for a Russian attack.
"We are being told that February 16 will be the day of the attack. We will make it the day of unity. The relevant decree has already been signed, " he said in his speech. "On this day, we will hoist national flags, put on blue and yellow ribbons and show the world our unity. We have one great European desire: we want freedom and (are) ready to fight for it. 14,000 defenders and civilians killed in this war are watching us from the sky. And we will not betray their memory."
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Some observers thought Zelenskyy may have been sarcastic or ironic given his past admonitions not to panic.
But an aide to Zelenskyy told Paste BN it wasn't irony.
"We treat it quite seriously," the aide said. "President (Zelenskyy) rather referred to so called 'leaks' or rumors widespread in media and social networks about most probable date of Russian aggression.”
Prior to the presidency, Zelenskyy was best known in Ukraine for his history teacher role in the TV show "Servant of the People" and for appearances in Ukrainian movies such as 2009's "Love in the Big City" and 2012's "Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon." Still, if show business and comedic acting was his initial calling, appealing to Ukraine's citizens to remain calm in the face of Russian aggression has been his style of late.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly asked President Joe Biden to tone down his predictions about the meaning of the growing presence of Russian troops, military equipment and supplies on Ukraine's borders, saying that he, not Ukraine's well-meaning allies, needed to "analyze all the information" regarding threats at Ukraine's borders.
"The truth is that we have different information. And now the best friend for enemies is panic in our country. And all this information helps only to create panic, doesn’t help us," Zelenskyy said over the weekend after watching military exercises near Kherson, in southern Ukraine, as the U.S. and other diplomatic missions in Ukraine ordered the majority of their embassy staff to evacuate.
The U.S. State Department has advised all Americans to leave Ukraine immediately. Around a dozen other countries have urged their citizens to do the same.
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Lawyer, actor, politician
A trained lawyer, Zelenskyy swapped his acting career for politics in the wake of the tumultuous events that have defined Ukraine's political and security landscape since 2014. That was the year the country's corrupt pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from power after months of popular protests and Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region on the Black Sea while militarily backing separatists who took control of large swathes of Ukraine's eastern territory.
In 2019, Zelenskyy took on Yanukovych's pro-West successor, Petro Poroshenko, in a vote the entertainer won in a landslide.
Sworn in as Ukraine's sixth president – its first Jewish president – in May that same year, Zelenskyy was elected to do three things. First, put an end to Ukraine's endemic culture of corruption, with a special emphasis on curbing the influence of Ukraine's super-rich oligarchs. (Poroshenko, for example, was known as Ukraine's "chocolate oligarch" because he owned a large confectionary manufacturer.) Second, boost Ukraine's ailing economy. And last, find a way to solve the country's simmering dispute with Russia-backed rebels in the east, where an estimated 14,000 people have died on both sides since 2014.
The jury is out on all three of these goals.
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Zelenskyy dogged by war, corruption claims
The war in the east has raged on for eight years and may be about to get a lot worse.
Ukraine requested a meeting Monday with Russia to get clarity within the next 48 hours over Moscow's intentions for its troops buildup. It's not clear if there's been a reply.
The coronavirus pandemic has obscured meaningful assessments of Zelenskyy's recent assertions that "our economy is stabilizing," with Ukraine seeing budget surpluses, a strengthened hryvnia currency and record gold and foreign exchange reserves.
As part of the so-called Pandora Papers investigation released in October, it was revealed that around the time of his election in 2019, Zelenskyy and his business partners in a comedy television production company owned a network of offshore companies related to their business based in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, and Belize. These companies were used to buy expensive properties in London. Zelenskyy denies that he or his associates were involved in money-laundering.
Yet Zelenskyy's election is still clouded by claims his campaign received major contributions from Ihor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian oligarch dogged by allegations of multibillion-dollar fraud. Kolomoisky was the majority owner of the television station that aired "Servant of the People," the show where Zelenskyy played a humble history teacher.
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What Ukrainians think of Zelenskyy
In October, his approval ratings fell to a new low: 25%. More pressingly, some 60% of Ukrainians polled in a survey in recent days said they wouldn't trust him if Ukraine was attacked by Russia, according to the Rating Sociological Group, a survey organization.
And on the world stage, Zelenskyy is, to a degree, still recovering from the awkward position he was placed in when had to keep two American presidents – the then-President Donald Trump and the future President Joe Biden – happy at the same time. He delicately deflected the "quid pro quo" scandal that saw Trump accused of illegally pressuring Zelenskyy to dig up damaging information on his political rival, Biden.
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Olga Rudenko, the editor of the English-language Kyiv Independent newspaper, said at an online panel hosted by the Frontline press club on Feb. 10 that Zelenskyy has been an "inconsistent" communicator about the crisis engulfing Ukraine.
"Zelenskyy says everything's going to be alright, then Biden says we're going to be invaded. ... Ukrainians don't know who to believe. ... Because Zelenskyy comes from show business we expect him to know what to say and how to say it," she said.
But Sergii Leshchenko, a former lawmaker who worked under Poroshenko, Ukraine's ex-president, said that he thought Zelenskyy was striking the right balance and not giving too much "weight" to U.S. theories that were not reflected on the ground.
"I tried to make a Valentine's Day dinner booking with my wife," Leshchenko told Paste BN by phone from Kyiv. "Everything was booked. Nobody is panicking."