The comic exactor Zelensky, an unlikely war leader for Ukraine

Volodimir Zelensky came to power three years ago promising to end a war with Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. He now faces a Russian invasion that could result in the overthrow of his government and the end of democracy in the country.

As Russia fired missiles at Ukrainian cities, including Kiev, Zelensky on Thursday called on all citizens to defend Ukraine and said weapons would be given to anyone who wanted them.

“Russia treacherously attacked our state this morning, as Nazi Germany did during World War II.”, Zelensky told Ukrainians in a national address.

“Russia has embarked on the path of evil, but Ukraine defends itself and will not give up its freedom, no matter what Moscow thinks”.

It’s a disastrous outcome for Zelensky, a 44-year-old former comic whose increasingly insistent calls over the past two years for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to admit Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, have infuriated the Russian president. , Vladimir Putin.

Moscow had demanded that NATO promise never to accept Ukraine, a country of great geopolitical, historical and cultural importance to Russia, a demand rejected by the West. Putin on Monday rejected Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent state, saying it is effectively part of Russia.

In recent weeks, Zelensky has drawn praise from Western leaders for his composure and calls on Ukrainians not to panic as Russia masses up to 150,000 troops near the border.

He also criticized foreign embassies and local businessmen for leaving Ukraine for security reasons, and renewed his call for the companies to stay, saying they risk inadvertently aiding Putin’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine.

“Servant of the People”

But Zelensky is an unlikely leader in times of war. He rose to fame in a popular television series “Servant of the People” (“Servant of the People”) in which he played an honest school teacher who is elected president and outwits corrupt legislators and shady businessmen.

Winning the presidency in a landslide in April 2019, he vowed to tackle the corruption that has blighted Ukraine’s transition from communism to democracy. But Russia has always posed the greatest challenge to his aspirations to build a modern, democratic and stable European country.

His Servant of the People party, named after the TV series, won a large majority in parliamentary elections in July 2019, and Zelensky initially sought confidence-building measures with Russia in eastern Ukraine, including prisoner swaps. .

But that little attempt didn’t last long. Russia, which seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014, continued to back armed separatists fighting Kiev’s forces in the mainly Russian-speaking Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in a conflict that, according to Zelensky, it has claimed at least 15,000 lives to date.

Risking the wrath of Moscow, Zelensky courted Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden, in talks at the White House on September 1, 2021.

“Everyone should understand that we are at war, that we are defending democracy in Europe and defending our country, and therefore they cannot speak to us in phrases about reformsZelensky stated in a June 2021 interview.

“Every day we show that we are ready to be in the alliance (NATO) more than most of the countries of the European Union”, he pointed.

Zelensky rode a wave of public discontent with Ukraine’s corrupt political elite until his victory over wealthy businessman Petro Poroshenko in 2019.

Asked by Reuters before that election how he differed from other presidential hopefuls, Zelensky pointed to his face and said: “This is a new face. I have never been in politics.”

“I have not misled people. They identify with me because I am open, it hurts me, I get angry. If I’m inexperienced at something, I’m inexperienced. If I don’t know something, I honestly admit it.”

But despite his promises to curb the tycoons’ influence in politics, Zelensky has had to dodge suspicions that he is a puppet of Ihor Kolomoisky, an oligarch whose television channel broadcast “Servant of the People”.