Oh, how they laughed.
When famous physical comics Vladimir Green was elected president of Ukraine in 2019 with more than 70 percent of the vote for an anti-corruption mandate against his pro-Russian opponent, the mainstream media treated his rise as a bit of a joke.
“Ukrainians wake up this morning and find that the last few months have not been a dream. They really chose a man who is currently starring in a TV series for president – the next real president of the country. ” BBC he laughs at the hours after his historic election, having previously described him as “ignorant.”
Commentators were even harsher.
The famous Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko wrote: “I hear laughter outside the screen of the screenwriters who invented this whole story about stupid Ukrainians.”
Now no one laughs at Zelensky.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the nation on television in Kyiv last Friday
The Ukrainian president has proved that he does not look like our dirty modern politicians who do not care about the people they represent; so much so that he is ready to die along with his fellow Ukrainians to defend the capital Kyiv against the almost certain impending attack by Vladimir Putin.
When the 44-year-old man received an evacuation proposal from US authorities this weekend as Russian troops continued to surround Kyiv, he responded directly to Hollywood action: “We need ammunition, not a car.”
Who believes that this would be the answer of the snoring Macron, the spoiled Trudeau or the dead Biden in the same circumstances?
It was certainly not the response of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who jumped on a US helicopter full of money from Kabul last year before it was even officially confirmed that the Taliban were nearby.
No wonder Boris Johnson said after a recent phone call with Zelensky: “God, this man is brave.”
Because do not doubt that the lives of Zelenski, his wife, screenwriter Olena Zelenska, and their two children, daughter Alexandra, 17, and son Kiril, 9, are now undeniably in danger.
Vladimir Zelensky is pictured in March 2019 at a comedy show in Brovary (left) and after the first exit poll in the presidential election in Kyiv two days later (right)
They are Putin’s “target number”, with the death warrant given to 400 brutal Russian mercenaries already operating in the city, who have explicit orders from the Kremlin to kill Zelensky, according to The Times today.
In a twist that no screenwriter could have predicted, Zelensky – once a comic star in Russia and now the country that wants to kill him – has become the heroic leading man in the world.
Zelensky’s career in show business – he also won the local version of Strictly Come Dancing and is Paddington’s Ukrainian voice – helped Ukraine win the propaganda effort.
His powerful oratory through official channels and social media has already changed the course of this conflict.
Indeed, some of his speeches over the past week have been so strong that TV translators have had to stop talking because they can’t control their emotions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation at the Kremlin in Moscow last Monday
There was his wild mockery of Putin: “When you attack us, you will see our faces, not our backs.”
Or his address to the security conference in Munich on February 19, where he helped the world wake up to the impending horrors by saying: “When a bomb crater appears on a school site, children have a question: ‘Has the world forgotten the mistakes of 20th century? Indifference makes you an accomplice.
And when the Russian disinformation campaign suggested that Zelensky had fled the capital, he simply took his mobile phone out into the street and took a selfie video to reassure his people that he was not going anywhere.
“We’re all here.” Our army is here. The citizens of society are here. “We are all here defending our independence, our country – and it will remain so,” he insisted.
This was followed by a video conversation with EU leaders – reluctant to enter the conflict – shortly after the Russian invasion, where he warned them: “This may be the last time you see me alive.”
These are all kinds of powerful remarks that could be made by his hero Vasil Petrovich Holoborodko in the TV series “Servant of the People”, which ended in 2019, where his hero, a teacher, became president after a speech he made about corruption went viral after being posted online by his students.
Ukrainian soldier stands today on Independence Square in Kyiv
As politicians around the world, from the sleepy Joe Biden to the authoritarian Mr. Blackface Justin Trudeau, become a joke, AFTER taking office, Zelensky turned from a comedian to a statesman in just a few weeks.
Compare Zelensky’s rhetoric with that of British MI6 chief Richard Moore.
Moore spent the crisis talking about gay rights for some unknown reason, tweeting incomprehensibly: “With the tragedy and destruction so painful in Ukraine, we must remember the values and hard-won freedoms that distinguish us from Putin, no more than of LGBT +. ‘
WTAF? No wonder Putin and Chinese Jinping continue to treat us with such contempt.
But in Hardman Zelensky – dressed in his green military uniform, showing a body once toned in Dancing With The Stars – Putin faced a far tougher opponent.
His authenticity and ability to speak directly to Russians in their language have persuaded many to support his cause, helping to spark large-scale illegal anti-war protests on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
A car that was destroyed by the recent shelling on the outskirts of Kyiv is pictured today
Zelensky’s personal story also helped reject Putin’s propaganda campaign that the first illegal invasion of a sovereign country in 80 years by a superpower boils down to Ukraine’s liberation from the Nazis.
He is from a Jewish family and his grandfather Semyon Ivanovich is the only one of his four brothers to survive the Holocaust, and the rest were killed by the Nazis.
As one skeptical Zelensky pointed out: “How can I be a Nazi? Explain it to my grandfather, who went through the whole war in the Soviet army infantry and died as a colonel in independent Ukraine.
Zelensky – best known before the war for his scandalous telephone conversation with Donald Trump that led to the political impeachment of the US president in the house – had dropped out of opinion polls before Putin decided to go to war with Ukraine after failed to seal. eliminate rampant corruption in the country, as promised.
His close relationship with billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky has raised eyebrows, and critics say he has surrounded himself with too many pro-Russian, anti-Western advisers who may have mistakenly convinced him that the war could be prevented, despite UK and US intelligence. for the opposite.
But none of that matters now.
Leaders are judged by the history of their actions in wartime.
And Zelensky’s approach has been very effective, imposing tougher sanctions, more military supplies and increasing pressure on the West, damn it, to calm Putin down.
His historical news clips, posted directly on social media, have seen his followers grow, with more than three million on Twitter and 12 million on Instagram.
Vladimir Zelensky delivered a speech as he was sworn in during his inauguration ceremony in parliament in Kyiv on May 20, 2019.
Like Donald Trump before him, he has the authenticity that our contemporary politicians, who seem to have become paranoid, scripted robots, lack.
Biden could not even go through the press conference about the conflict without bursting into inappropriate smiles, for God’s sake.
Zelensky is rightly a global hero now, but whether he will survive the war is impossible to predict, given that Putin – who runs a well-oiled international assassination machine – wants him dead.
Perhaps what warms the heart the most is that Zelensky never needed to enter politics; he had a national superstar, millions in the bank, luxury villas and an extremely successful career in Russia, until he donated money to support the Ukrainian army in 2014.
Zelenski once said: “You don’t need experience to be president. You just have to be a decent human being.
And this is innate decency, which is why he prefers to die with his citizens in Kyiv than to cut himself and escape in an American helicopter.
I pray that this inspiring figure will lead Ukraine out of this quagmire – the world will be a better place for it.