How Zelenskyy evolved into a wartime leader
Once a comic actor, Ukrainian president now a uniting force
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian tanks were rolling over the border and Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, was in the grips of fear and panic. Street fighting broke out and a Russian armored column, barreling into the city, advanced to within 2 miles of the office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In those tense first days of the war, almost everyone — Russian President Vladimir Putin, military analysts and many Western officials — expected the Ukrainian leadership to fracture. Instead, Zelenskyy decided to personally remain in the capital, taking selfies as he traversed Kyiv to reassure his people. And he ordered his senior aides, many Cabinet members and much of his government to also stay put, despite the risks.
It was a crystallizing moment for Zelenskyy’s government, ensuring a wide array of agencies kept running efficiently and in sync. Leading politicians put aside the sharp-elbowed infighting that had defined Ukrainian politics for decades and instead created a largely united front that continues today.
No senior officials defected or fled, and the bureaucracy quickly went onto a war footing.
“In the first days of the war, everybody was in shock, and everybody was thinking what to do — stay in Kyiv or evacuate,” said Serhiy Nikiforov, Zelenskyy’s spokesperson. “The president’s decision was no one goes anywhere. We stay in Kyiv, and we fight. That cemented it.”
To much of the world, Zelenskyy is best known for appearing by video link with a daily message of courage and defiance, to
rally his people and exhort allies to provide weapons, money and moral support. On Sunday, he commanded global attention again in a meeting in Kyiv with two top U.S. officials, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who pledged more military support and — in a move of symbolic importance — said the United States would move to reopen its embassy in Kyiv.
But behind the scenes, Zelenskyy’s success is also rooted in the government’s ability to operate smoothly and take measures to help people cope, such as sweeping deregulation to keep the economy afloat, and to provide essential goods and services.
By loosening rules around transporting cargo, for instance, the government was able to address a dire risk of food shortages in Kyiv in the early days of the war.
And in March, he dropped business taxes to 2% — and then only if the owner wanted to pay.
“Pay if you can, but if you cannot, there are no questions asked,” Zelenskyy said at the time.
More contentiously, he combined six television stations that previously competed against one another into one outlet for news. The merger, he said, was necessary for national security, but it frustrated political opponents and free speech advocates.
He has also forged a truce with his primary domestic political opponent, former President Petro Poroshenko, with whom he had been feuding right up until the start of the war.
A tremendous wartime effect of rallying around the flag undoubtedly eased Zelenskyy’s job, said Volodymyr Yermolenko, editorin-chief of Ukraine World, a
magazine covering politics. “The peculiar thing about Ukrainian politics is the agency comes from society, not the political leaders,’’ he said. “Zelenskyy is who he is due to the Ukrainian people, who are behind him, showing courage.”
He added that “this is not to undermine his efforts” and credited Zelenskyy for adapting his populist, prewar politics into an effective leadership style in the crucible of conflict.
These days, Zelenskyy’s workplace on Bankova Street is a hushed, darkened space crowded with soldiers; there are firing positions protected by sandbags in the corridors and on stairway landings. “We were prepared to fight exactly in this building,” said Nikiforov.
A former comedic actor, Zelenskyy has surrounded himself with a group of loyalists from his days in
television, relationships that prompted accusations of cronyism in the past but that have served him well during the conflict by keeping his leadership team on the same page. And Zelenskyy has structured his days in a way that works for him.
Zelenskyy receives one-on-one phone briefings from Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander of the armed forces, multiple times a day and often first thing in the morning, aides and advisers said.
This is followed by a morning video conference with the prime minister, sometimes other members of the Cabinet, and military and intelligence agency leaders in a format that combines military and civilian decision-making, according to Nikiforov.
Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former minister of economy and now an economic adviser to the president’s office, likened Ukrainian politics to “loved ones fighting.’’
“It’s a family fight,’’ he said. “But family comes first.’’
The inner circle is made up largely of media, movie and comedy industry veterans with backgrounds similar to Zelenskyy’s.
In the first days of the war Zelenskyy set three priorities for his government’s ministries, according to Mylovanov: weapons procurement, shipments of food and other goods, and maintaining supplies of gasoline and diesel fuel. The ministries were told to rewrite regulations to ensure swift delivery on all three tracks.
That was perhaps most helpful in the frantic rush early on to get food to Kyiv, which was at risk of being besieged and starved.
With the supply chain disrupted, the president’s office brokered an arrangement among grocery chains, trucking companies and volunteer drivers to establish a single trucking service supplying all food stores. Stores would post a request on a website, and whichever driver was available would fill the order either for free or for the cost of gasoline.
Perhaps the most controversial move Zelenskyy made was to combine the six television newsrooms into one channel with a single report. Omitted from the group was the main opposition television station, Channel 5, affiliated with Poroshenko.
Zelenskyy positioned the move as necessary for national security. Opponents viewed it as the government suppressing dissent.
Mylovanov said Ukraine’s pluralistic political culture would bounce back.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We will be back to fighting over a liberal versus protectionist economic policy, price controls, how to attract investments, and all the rest of it.”