President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, who was changed by the war, or why Putin "underestimated"

On the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it would be unfair not to talk about the president of a country that has not surrendered and has been fighting for its independence and territorial integrity for 12 months now.

The fact that Ukraine continues to put up strong resistance is also due to President Volodymyr Zelensky, who surprised many, and above all, Vladimir Putin, writes dw. His videos, recorded either in the office or in a bomb shelter, became a military chronicle and evidence of how Ukraine and the head of state himself were changing.

Zelensky set a kind of world record – not a single president has made daily appeals to fellow citizens, while the Ukrainian head of state has been doing this for a year every day. On February 23, 2022, a few hours before the start of the war, he wrote down a special appeal addressed to the citizens of Russia. In an attempt to prevent a war, Zelensky called on Russians to protest in his country and warned while speaking in Russian:

“If troops attack us, if they try to take away our country, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. Do not attack – defend ourselves. When advancing, you will see our faces, not our backs – our faces” .

At that time, the 44-year-old politician appeared for the last time in front of the camera in a suit, with a tie and clean-shaven.

After the start of the Russian invasion, Zelensky and the government of Ukraine remain in the capital, even when Russian troops stand on the outskirts of Kyiv. As the newspaper notes, this surprises many, including, apparently, Russian President Vladimir Putin. He probably counted on the fact that Volodymyr Zelensky would flee to the western regions of Ukraine or abroad. Such proposals have been received. According to the AP news agency, Zelensky’s response became legendary: “I need ammunition, not taxis.” Whether his phrase literally sounded like that, there is no evidence. But she accurately conveys his mood, brings a lot of sympathy abroad and raises the morale of the country.

This can be called a 180 degree turn. In the days and weeks before, many were surprised by Zelensky’s reaction to the situation. When Western intelligence agencies and heads of state warn of an impending Russian invasion and evacuate embassy personnel from Kyiv, the President of Ukraine reacts to these actions and messages critically, with distrust and criticism. Zelensky would later explain this as a desire to avoid panic.

The start of the war changes everything. On its first day, February 24, 2022, the President of Ukraine speaks in an olive-colored jacket. The military dress code is still his signature style, as is the three-day stubble. This is how the whole world now knows him, this is how he appears in numerous interviews on the front pages of newspapers. On February 25, that is, on the second day of the war, the Ukrainian president records perhaps his most important video. In the half-minute video, standing surrounded by other Ukrainian high-ranking officials outside his office building in Kyiv, he sends the main message: “We are all here, we are defending our independence.”

And if in the early days Zelensky is ready to make some concessions in order to stop the war, for example, to abandon the desire to join NATO, then after reports of numerous casualties and the annexation of new territories, he takes an uncompromising position, like most Ukrainians.

The wartime president is betting on what he does best – communication. His most powerful weapon is his camera. Zelensky appears in short videos recorded in different regions of Ukraine, supports fellow citizens, finds the right words, looks humanly accessible. Few dislike his penchant for wordplay.

Zelensky travels to the front, meets with soldiers, for example, in the liberated Izyum in September or Bakhmut in December. Sometimes Zelensky uses footage of destroyed Ukrainian cities in his addresses. At the same time, he does not need a staging, the reality is terrifying. Support for Zelensky in the country, which had fallen sharply before the Russian invasion, has almost tripled since the start of the war and now stands at 80-90%. Why was he underestimated by opponents and partners?

The answer probably lies in the past. Zelenskiy became president of Ukraine in 2019 with no political experience, just like in his series Servant of the People, where he played a schoolteacher turned head of state. Before becoming president, he was a successful comedian, actor and producer. There was even a case when he entertained ex-President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev from the stage during his visit to Ukraine. This was probably one of the reasons why the leadership of the Russian Federation did not take him seriously and even got annoyed when he did not make any concessions.

Zelensky was a Russian-speaking comedian who for years made fun of Ukrainianism and pro-Western Ukrainian politicians. His jokes about pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych were, however, harmless. Zelensky had close ties to Russia, where he earned money even after the annexation of Crimea. Not everyone could forgive him.

The Russian invasion became a watershed. Criticism of him fell silent, and in many respects this was facilitated by the fact that he did not leave the country with the outbreak of war. And he was able to convince some skeptics, using his experience in childhood and adolescence. He grew up in Krivoy Rog, an industrial city in southeastern Ukraine. As a professor’s son, he was in a somewhat privileged position among his peers. But this generation found the last difficult years before and after the collapse of the USSR, accompanied by semi-criminal norms of youth behavior. From there, he made one of the main postulates in his life: one does not leave the confrontation.

This came to the fore when, between the first and second rounds of the 2019 presidential election, he challenged President Petro Poroshenko, a seasoned politician and rival, to a stadium debate. In the autumn of the same year, Zelensky, already the head of state, during a meeting in Donbass with fighters who opposed the withdrawal of troops from the line of contact, made it clear that he would not yield under pressure and dropped the phrase that he was “the president of this country”, and not “some kind of bug”.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, that attitude worked for Zelensky. And the owner of the Kremlin seems to have underestimated this. Most likely, Putin considered Zelensky an inexperienced and weak politician who could be easily broken.

Naturally, Vladimir Zelensky does not succeed in everything, and the government makes mistakes. Some politicians had to resign, among them friends of the president. He himself caused surprise and even irritation of Western partners when he claimed in November that the missile that fell in Poland and killed two people was Russian. According to the US, it was a missile fired by a Ukrainian air defense system. But this episode was rather an exception.

The President of Ukraine sees his main task in getting more help for his country through the media. Almost daily, he appeals to Western politicians and the public, and asks (some say, begging) for weapons. Requests successfully, more and more weapons. So many video speeches in parliaments and at conferences, like Zelensky, no other president or prime minister has. And this is also a world record.

It remains only to add the information provided by the publication Financial Times in the material dedicated to the anniversary of the war in Ukraine. According to the publication, when Russian President Vladimir Putin began to develop plans for a possible invasion, his godfather Viktor Medvedchuk assured that Ukrainians would meet Russian troops with open arms. The plan provided for the involvement of ex-president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych at a certain stage of the invasion. His task was to make a video message that would legitimize Medvedchuk’s management of Ukraine “with the support of Russia.”

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