It’s always tempting to see major wars as clashes between individuals – Napoleon versus Wellington, Churchill versus Hitler – but that’s usually a mistake. A war across continents is about much more than just a duel between two people.
But Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has real smacks of personal struggle.
It was essentially his own idea, hatched with a group of three or four officials and generals at a time when Russia was cut off from Covid, although by now, almost eight months after it began, millions of people in Russia and Ukraine have perished lives have been damaged as a result.
And one man has become known because he has fought back against it with extraordinary success.
Volodymyr Zelensky is a calm, charming, modest man. He is known to be an actor by trade and played the role of the President of Ukraine on television long before he was chosen for the actual job. Maybe it’s because of the quiet charm and the apparent lack of arrogance, of course: you’d have to know him a lot better to be sure of that. But it’s not my guess.
Zelenskyi is what he looks like, and like many actors, he has a clear-eyed appreciation of himself and the limits of his abilities.
In the presidential palace, where the main staircase is defended by sandbag positions and visitors can’t even take a guard with them, Zelensky’s dark green T-shirt seemed to fit perfectly.
Whichever of his top officials suggested he appear on television during those frightening days in February and March when the Russians were very close and the streets of Kyiv were full of rust-colored steel tank traps called “hedgehogs”, deserves a special award.
Zelensky hit the right note—tough, sleek, practical, and ready for a fight. At that time, most of Ukraine’s friends abroad were sure that the Russians would advance to the center of Kiev in no time. It was a sign of Zelenskyi’s strength of character that he announced he would stay no matter what happened.
His ability to keep hitting the right note has lasted for eight months.
A few days ago, however, he misunderstood something and appeared to be calling for a preemptive strike to prevent Russia from deploying its nuclear weapons on the battlefield — relatively low-yield bombs that would have a horrific effect locally, but would be fairly limited in where Damage they caused over a larger area.
Zelensky’s words were not well chosen and gave Moscow an easy victory for a few hours. When I interviewed him, he was sufficiently concerned to dampen criticism by delivering his defense in English. He meant, he said, preventively sanctions that the West should impose on Russia to dissuade President Putin and his generals from launching Europe’s first nuclear war.
Maybe.
“We’re not terrorists,” he said when I asked him about it, and that opened up another question. The New York Times has claimed the US now believes Ukrainian agents were responsible for last August’s Moscow car bombing that killed ultraconservative TV reporter Darya Dugina and may have been intended for her equally extreme father, who used to be close to her insert stand.
Zelenskyy insisted that his government had absolutely nothing to do with it. Of course he would.
Yet there are many presidents and prime ministers who would get angry if asked such questions. Not Volodymyr Zelenskyy: he remains calm and surprisingly warm-hearted. He’s much better at talking about emotions and the impact of war on ordinary people than about political details, but that’s one of the reasons for his enormous success, not only in Ukraine but worldwide.
He has to be the most popular leader in the world right now, and he’s undoubtedly winning his personal PR duel with President Putin; Putin angry and scowling and reluctant to leave the Kremlin, Zelenskyy making trips to newly liberated cities. He even shows sympathy for the young Russian conscripts who are sent to fight in Ukraine, telling me: “Without weapons and body armor – just cannon fodder”.
I wondered if his very public refusal to consider negotiations with Vladimir Putin was a signal to other Russian leaders that if they wanted to end the war, they had to brush Putin aside. After talking to him about it, I decided against it.
He doesn’t seem to have the slightest interest in Putin as a person and has no respect whatsoever for him as a war leader who micromanages the battles in angry calls with his generals.
Does he mind if Vladimir Putin falls from power, I asked?
Zelensky puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. “Not at all,” he said.
Add Comment