The comedian versus the tough guy
Zelensky fires barbs in his battle of wits with Russia, write Catherine Philp in Kyiv and Anthony Loyd.
Decried for his sarcastic wisecracks in the countdown to the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s comedianturned-president cut his Italian counterpart down to size yesterday over a missed phone call.
Volodymyr Zelensky had been up most of the night, issuing video statements to his people at 1am and 7am as rockets rained down on Kyiv, lambasting the West for leaving Ukraine to fight Russia alone and warning that saboteurs were coming for him. About 9am he had a call with Boris Johnson, which Downing Street described as ‘‘deeply moving’’, then returned to crisis meetings. Mario Draghi was unhappy not to get his scheduled chat with the man of the moment at 9.30am – ‘‘it was not possible to make the phone call because President Zelensky was no longer available’’. Zelensky, 44, hit back, saying at that moment ‘‘there was heavy fighting. People died. Next time I’ll try to move the war schedule to talk to #MarioDraghi at a specific time. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to fight for its people.’’
The battle for Kyiv has brought an unfamiliar gravitas for the president who abandoned his comedy career four years ago for a run at the top job, promising to end the conflict with Russia in eastern Ukraine. Critics said he was out of his depth in facing an existential crisis, worrying that the joke was now on Ukrainian voters. Yet from an extraordinary speech at the Munich security council, decrying the West’s ‘‘appeasement’’ of Russia, to his video messages from a near-besieged Kyiv, the funnyman is finding a serious new voice.
Clad in a military green T-shirt, he slammed Western allies for their timidity, scoffed at the sanctions they had agreed and called for an airlift of weapons and an immediate no-fly zone if Kyiv and the rest of Europe were to be saved.
Zelensky’s political and physical life are threatened as Russia seeks to fulfil the dire intelligence warning that it plans a decapitation of the Ukrainian government. Yet the resistance Russian forces have met, urged on by Zelensky’s addresses, has infuriated Vladimir Putin, set Moscow wobbling over negotiations and complicated plans for a swift victory.
A livid Russian president described Zelensky’s government as a ‘‘band of drug addicts and neo-Nazis’’, an ironic and
The funnyman is finding a serious new voice.
unfounded label for Ukraine’s first Jewish president. At one point Ukraine was the only country outside Israel to have both a Jewish president and prime minister.
Vladislav Davidzon, a UkrainianAmerican writer who has met the president several times, asked before the conflict began: ‘‘Is he a Churchill ready for his moment? The population is, so far, behind him. He’s canny and tough, as you have to be as a Jewish boy born in a hard, industrialised town in southeast Ukraine.’’ He has resolutely refused to give up on Ukraine’s bid for Nato accession and bend to Moscow’s will.
Nonetheless, inexperience haunts his presidency. Before coming to power in 2019 on promises to end the war and wipe out institutionalised corruption, Zelensky was a star in the Ukrainian television show Servant of the People. He appeared as a history teacher whose anger at corruption propelled him to the presidency. He ended up acting the part of president. In one scene his character defiantly instructed the country’s Western IMF backers to ‘‘stick your head up your ass!’’
Zelensky’s acerbic wit has proved useful for tackling Russian propaganda. When the Kremlin offered Ukrainians in the Donbas region Russian passports, the president quipped: ‘‘In Ukraine we have freedom of speech, a free media and free internet. Therefore, we perfectly understand what a Russian passport means – the right to be arrested at a peaceful protest, the right not to have free and competitive elections, and the right to ignore natural rights and human freedom.’’
He has also used his social media savvy with great effect. With rumours of his departure from Kyiv swirling around Russian media, he took to Twitter to post a self-filmed video of himself and key government figures outside the presidential administration – listing his team and saying ‘‘we’re still here’’.
He appears even more resolute in the face of a Russian invasion. As Putin called on Ukraine’s army to depose their president, Zelensky retorted with a call to Russians to join growing anti-war protests across the nation. With his future in the balance, from an unknown location in Kyiv as Russian troops move in, he may have found his Churchill moment.