Volodymyr Zelensky this week took on his most unlikely role yet: that of president of a wartime Ukraine.
The 44-year-old actor and comedian who was elected leader of the country after becoming famous playing a Ukrainian president in a TV series has now become “the number one target” of Russian Vladimir Putin in the war that started on Thursday (24), according to himself. said in a statement. Even so, he has said he will not leave the country.
While still saying he wants to negotiate, Putin openly talks about overthrowing the president
and this Friday called for Ukrainian soldiers to seize power. In the same speech, the Russian stated that the country is now ruled by a gang of neo-Nazis. This was, in fact, one of the justifications for the Russian invasion: to “denazify” the country.
Although there are allegations of infiltration by neo-Nazi groups in parts of the Ukrainian state, such as sectors of the Armed Forces – the Azov Battalion, for example, is accused of using symbols such as the swastika and Nazi salutes – the argument is especially cruel against Zelensky, as he is the first Jewish president of Ukraine.
To the American newspaper The New York Times, the Ukrainian president reacted and stated that three of his great-uncles were killed in the Holocaust. “How could I be a Nazi? Tell that to my grandfather, who spent the entire war in the infantry of the Soviet army and died as a colonel in independent Ukraine,” he said.
Another factor that increases the level of complexity of the character is that he has Russian as his mother tongue – he grew up in Krivi Rih, in the central region of the country, one of the largest cities in Ukraine and where Russian is the predominant language.
And it was in Russian that he spoke last Wednesday (23), hours before the start of the attacks, in an emotional speech in which he said that the war would be “a great disaster, with a high cost” of money, reputation, quality of life, freedom. and the lives of loved ones.
With no political experience before running, Zelensky borrowed many of the characteristics of the comedy series that propelled him to stardom. In “Servo do Povo”, he plays a history teacher who goes viral on the internet with a video in which he vents against corruption and ends up elected president of the country.
In real life, he gave the same name as the TV show to his party, Servo do Povo, and had in the fight against corruption his main proposal — or only one, since one of the campaign mottos, in a joking tone, was that “those who don’t have promises don’t disappoint”.
In the midst of an anti-political wave and with an almost entirely internet campaign, the then-president Petro Porochenko, who was seeking a second term, won with 73% of the votes in the second round.
Zelensky inherited a civil war in the east of his country, an economy collapsed by the dispute and the conflict over Crimea, which had been annexed by Russia in 2014 in reaction to the Ukrainian uprising that, in the same year, removed a pro-Moscow government from power.
Minutes after taking office as president, he dissolved Parliament, an expedient foreseen for the country’s leaders, and called for legislative elections in the hope of consolidating his power – he, in fact, obtained a majority of seats in the House. In charge of the country, he put among his fellow advisers from his comedy company Kvartal 95, the same company that made him famous before entering politics.
Even though he promised to negotiate with Russia to resolve conflicts in the east, he made it clear that his government placed Ukraine closer to the West than to Moscow.
In the famous phone call in which former US President Donald Trump pressured him to investigate the activities of the son of then-pre-candidate Joe Biden in the country, Zelensky proved subservient and was criticized both inside and outside Ukraine.
In the call, he criticized top European Union leaders Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron — who did not get along with the American — said Trump was “a great teacher” for the political renewal he was trying to bring about in Ukraine and ended with praise. free by saying things like, “We can take my plane and go to Ukraine or take your plane, which is probably a lot better than mine.”
But Zelensky is no longer so happy with Western leaders. On Thursday, the first day of the attacks, he said the country had been abandoned as so far no one had sent troops to help Ukraine fight the Russians, which besieged the capital Kiev. “They left us alone to defend our state,” he said. “Who is willing to fight with us? I don’t see anyone. Who is willing to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid,” he lamented.
