Front Burner - Volodymyr Zelensky, from comic to wartime president of Ukraine

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

On Saturday morning, as war shook his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a defiant video to his Facebook page. Standing outside, on the streets of the capital, Kyiv, he said: “There has been a lot of fake information online that I am calling on our army to lay down their arms and to evacuate. Listen, I am here. We are not going to lay down anything. We will protect our country. Our weapon is truth. And the truth is, that it is our land. Our country. Our children. And we will protect it.” Today on Front Burner, with BBC World Service’s Kateryna Khinkulova, we trace Zelensky’s path from playing the president on TV to leading the country through a Russian invasion.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. On Saturday morning, as war shook his country, sending thousands fleeing to the border or to bomb shelters, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a defiant video on his Facebook page. He was standing outside on the streets of the capital in Kiev.

He said, There has been a lot of fake information online that I am calling on our army to lay down their arms and to evacuate. Listen, I am here. We are not going to lay down anything. We will protect our country. Our weapon is truth. And the truth is that this is our land, our country, our children, and we will protect it. Today, a look at President Volodymyr Zelensky from a comedian comedian who played the president on TV, to leading the country through a Russian invasion. But first, a view from the ground in Kiev after the first full weekend of war.

Sudarshan Raghavan is a correspondent at large with The Washington Post. He's in the Ukrainian capital. We spoke on Sunday afternoon, Eastern Standard Time, and Sunday night in Kiev. Sudarsan, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us today. My pleasure. It's good to be here. I wonder if you could just give me a sense of what it's been like in Kyiv over the weekend. So over the weekend, it's been a mix of moments of real tenseness and at other moments it's been quiet. At nighttime, we've seen intensifying bombardments and last night it was accompanied by gunfire. There's also a curfew that's been in place all day today and will be lifted only tomorrow morning. This is apparently for the government is looking for what they describe as saboteurs, basically Russian forces who have infiltrated the city and are trying to sow disruption and chaos.

The Ukrainians that you've been talking to about the invasion, how are they responding to this? Well, this nightmare scenario for them. Yeah, increasingly, I mean, for the people who haven't fled the capital or even fled the country, which right now is according to the UN, I think today they were saying 300,000 Ukrainians have fled the country into neighboring European countries. But many people have remained. This is a city of nearly 3 million people. And there's quite a number, large numbers of people here who are ready to fight, defend the capital. What we're seeing is anyone who's able to fight, man or woman, are being asked to go to these kind of police command centers where they're distributing weapons.

I was in one of those lines yesterday, a long line of men waiting to sign up for war. They would go into this building and emerge out with an AK-47 or some other kind of weapon. As of yesterday, about 18,000 to 20,000 weapons were handed out. So people are preparing, gearing up for what could possibly be street battles if the Russian forces do push into the city and city center. Other people are making Molotov cocktails. I visited one kind of underground basement bunker type place where there was at least about 25 to 30 volunteers. They're bringing in bottles. They're using styrofoam, putting in flammable liquid.

You know, they're bringing in bottles, they're using styrofoam, putting in flammable liquid. Those cocktails are going to be handed over to the Territorial Defense Forces, which is kind of like a civilian militia created by the Ukrainian government, and presumably to be deployed against Russian tanks, Russian forces, if they enter the Capitol. Wow. So, Darson, just before I let you go, we saw what we've seen defiant videos of the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on the streets of Kyiv. I wonder what you're hearing from Ukrainians about how they're feeling under his leadership right now. I mean, they are feeling very good about him. They like the fact that he's been an excellent communicator. He's shown a sense of courage that many leaders don't show around the world. I mean, I was in Afghanistan a few months ago, and I'm seeing tweets from my friends and colleagues and ordinary Afghans who are comparing what their country was like to Zelensky. They have applauded Zelensky, and they

wish their own former president, Ashraf Ghanii hadn't fled the country on the very first day when the Taliban had entered Kabul. So in Zelensky, they see a really strong type of leader who can now stand up to Russia. Okay. Sturgeon, thank you so much for this. We're so appreciative and hoping that you stay safe. Thank you. Thank you very much. We wanted to learn more about Ukrainian President Zelensky. And so we called up Katerina Hinkalova. She's a BBC World Service journalist based in London. Katarina, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us. I can imagine as a Ukrainian, even one living abroad, this must be a very stressful time for you.

Well, it is a surreal time and it was a frightening time for me, as you say, yes, because I'm Ukrainian and I think this distance makes it particularly difficult because there's this added sense of anxiety for all the people that I know and love who are in Ukraine. But I think it's also a surreal and stressful and anxious time for a lot of other people, for people who just care about freedom and democracy. And so yes, I think it's a very uncertain time for a lot of us being in these uncharted waters, for sure. Today, I'm hoping that we could get a fuller picture of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. And I wonder if we could start by going back and talking a bit about who he was before he became president. How did he first emerge onto the public stage?

He first emerged as an actor, mostly as a comedian. He started off in his acting career as a student. So he was a part of this student stand-up comedy group. He then started, even though he studied law, he started his own production company. And then he, as an actor, also started getting involved in films and in TV series and in sitcoms. He was in quite quite a few rom-coms and long before he became president he was definitely could say household name in both ukraine and russia just the these films and tv series he was in this very popular TV series called The Servant of the People. His part was this simple man who was very, very critical of politicians. They make your children build your booths.

And thought that they were all insincere and he was this sort of salt of the earth kind of man. And he then succeeds in becoming a president himself. Hello. Vasily Petrovich Goloborodko? Yes. Good morning, Mr. President. And he becomes this kind of man of the people president, and he's a very, very successful president. And then, of course, he went on to not exactly repeat that story in real life, but quite closely follow that kind of narrative arc.

Yeah. And can you tell me a little bit about how you revealed that he was actually going to run for president in real life, not on TV? He revealed it in a New Year's address to the nation. So he, in this mocking address to the nation, mocking the existing, the current president at that time of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, he addressed the nation and talked about how if he were president, Ukraine would be much better off and announced his presidential bid. And at the time, it seemed like a joke that he wasn't really serious about it.

But then it turned out that he was serious. It's only a few days until the presidential elections. Yes. Why are you doing this? Why not? This is my profession. Why not? This is my profession. Do you not have a campaign to be running? Yes.

You're a busy man. Yes. You'll be even busier if you become president. Who knows? I don't know. I've never been there. So maybe they have Saturday and Sunday. I don't know, we'll see. And even though he only announced the bid on 1st of January, less than four months later, in April 2019, Ukraine had the elections

and he won in a landslide victory. Wow, that's such an incredible story. And when he was campaigning, what was it about his message that struck a chord with the Ukrainian people to deliver this landslide victory just four months after he announced his candidacy? I will vote for Zelensky because there is hope that this man who comes from the people can better understand us and break the system that exists in the country. Why do you think he won?

Well, there were several factors. So before we even get on to his campaign and his character, the important thing to remember that his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, came to power at the time of the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. And whilst on the one hand, Ukraine was already under a certain amount of pressure and threat from Russia, that was also a time of great hope. And it seemed like there was nothing Ukraine couldn't do. So the expectations, they were very, very high. And I think a lot of people just thought that things would improve very quickly and Ukraine would move closer to the European Union, closer to NATO, living standards would improve quickly.

And as it often happens, as we know, those kinds of expectations, those kinds of hopes are almost never realized and they're just dashed. And then it's possible for the next wave of opposition to take advantage of that. And that's what Volodymyr Zelensky and his campaign, that's what they did. They sort of pressed on these sensitive points of Petro Poroshenko, his predecessor, and they campaigned on peace. That was their main kind of point, that they ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, negotiating with Russia, so not conceding anything, not making concessions to Russia,

but negotiating and having constructive talks. Then transparency and fighting corruption. He accused President Poroshenko and his team of being corrupt. He also promised improving infrastructure, building new roads, just generally kind of improving standards of living. Volodymyr Zelensky arrived to his inauguration on foot. He stopped for selfies and high-fives, jumping to kiss members of the public, true man-of-the-people style stuff. The crowds chanting Zelensky as he took to the red carpet and strode with panache through the parliament.

And it has to be said that he did deliver, at least to some extent, on a lot of those things. So in terms of fighting corruption, one of the things that really frustrated a lot of people in Ukraine was the impunity of those in power. It seemed like as soon as someone became a politician, became a member of parliament, they immediately started using their position for their personal enrichment and embezzling whatever funds they could lay their hands on. My election only proves that the citizens are tired of the experienced politicians who, over the past 28 years, created a country of opportunities, opportunities to steal, bribe and loot. So what President Zelensky did, he made sure that the MPs and even the president were no longer protected from persecution.

So if they did break the law, they would be persecuted just like everyone else. And that was very important for people to believe that he was serious about fighting corruption. In terms of peace, it was more difficult in terms of negotiations because it was a bit more complicated and there were all sorts of factors at play. But what he did manage to do, he managed this major exchange of prisoners with Russia, with the rebels rather, in eastern Ukraine, which happened in September 2019. And that was a big boost for his popularity. What about his critics? What did they have to say about him? What were their concerns about him after this sort of landslide victory in 2019?

So he had a real, as I say, landslide victory. Around 75% of those who voted in the election supported him. So that was really, really a very powerful endorsement. And then the people who didn't support them, they described themselves as the other 25%. And amongst those people, there were a lot of people from intellectual elites, from those who supported Zelensky's predecessor, President Poroshenko. And they just felt that he wasn't a real president, that his lack of political experience just kind of fell more in line with almost like President Trump or something like that, you know, sort of coming into and sort of being very populist.

And a lot of people worried that with this populist agenda was kind of promising, you know, improving standards of living, fighting corruption, he wasn't actually going to do it. It was just this populist electoral slogans that would deceive a lot of voters, would bring him to power, but he wouldn't actually be able to fulfill that program. And also, a lot of people quite simply worried that he would become too friendly with Russia, and he would start negotiating in a way that would kind of flash down the river a lot of the achievements of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity during, you know, those protests where people actually died

and would make concessions that would be unacceptable. But actually, none of those fears actually materialized because he actually was, so on the one hand, he negotiated with Russia and as I say, this exchange of prisoners was a real success. A long awaited exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine has taken place. The swap could be a significant step towards easing relations between the countries and raising chances of resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Now, fighting there between troops and Russianed separatists has killed more than 13,000 people. But he didn't concede too much. And that's why the talks around the status of the breakaway regions and the rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine, that's why those negotiations

didn't really progress very far, because Russia was very adamant and standing in its own position and then there just wasn't much negotiating room and President Zelensky wasn't prepared to concede and to sacrifice Ukraine's interests. Dear nation, throughout my life I've been trying to do everything I can to make Ukrainians smile. I've been trying to do everything I can to make Ukrainians smile. I felt with my heart that it wasn't just my job, it was my mission. In the next five years, I will do everything so that you Ukrainians don't cry. Thank you. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo.

50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Before we go any further, I wonder if you could tell me why people thought that he might be too soft on Russia. Was it just because of his lack of political experience, political acumen, or was it something else too? Well, he came from this industrial city

in kind of southern eastern Ukraine called Kluviri, which is traditionally Russian-speaking. He was from a Russian-speaking family himself. And even though a lot of people in Ukraine speak Russian and they are at the same time, they're all for Ukrainian national interests, this sort of background worries some people that he might not be sufficiently pro-Ukrainian.

Also the fact that he's in his electoral campaign and just in the way he came to power. So we spoke about how he had this brilliant campaign and all these promises, but the reason he could deliver them to the wider public in such a short space of time was because he had a lot of support from the media. And the reason he had a lot of support from the media

is almost certainly because he was backed И причина, почему он получал много поддержки от медиа, это почти точно так же, потому что он был поддержан владельцем одного из руководителей украинских главных телеканалов 1+, и владельцем этого была украинская олигархка Игорь Коломойский. В руках ни одному из этих людей. Если вы человек принципов, почему вы работаете за человека, который, как говорят антикоррупционные авторитеты, украл все это деньги от людей этого страны? Why are you working for a man who the anti-corruption authorities say has stolen all this money from the people of this country? Even though Volodymyr Zelensky always denied that he was, God forbid, a kind of puppet or any sort of protege of Igor Kolomoisky. A lot of people in Ukraine worried that Kolomoisky being an oligarch, he would be more open to negotiating with Russia, and therefore Zelensky would be more open to negotiating with Russia, because his own business interests would be more important to him than Ukraine's national interests as well.

And so it would all go back. It was almost like it felt for a minute, almost like Ukraine was back to 2010 when Viktor Yanukovych, the president who did turn out to be incredibly pro-Russian, came to power with a lot of support from the industrial groups, from the oligarchs. And so there was almost like Ukrainians were worried that they were reliving that time again. And again, it would be that same sort of scenario which would end up in Ukrainians having to protest and come out onto the streets.

But again, that all didn't happen. And as time went on, Zelensky sort of matured into this efficient and effective politician and who always had Ukraine's interests in his mind primarily. I wonder now if we can move closer to the present. We've been hearing about Russian troop build-up around the Ukrainian border for months now

and the concerns that there would be an invasion certainly did not come out of nowhere. And so how did President Zelensky handle the lead up to the war? So at the end of October, beginning of November last year, Western intelligence started warning Ukraine and Ukraine's allies about this gradual increasing and quite rapidly growing buildup of Russian troops on the several of Ukrainian borders on several sides. And then quickly started warning that that buildup was leading to an invasion that Russia had in mind and that was what it was planning. was leading to an invasion that Russia had in mind and that was planning. No one really took that seriously and no one believed that. In Ukraine, political analysts, military analysts, politicians were all dismissing that until really not long before the invasion. And President

Zelensky himself, he was always very, very, you know, playing down those suggestions. And on the one hand, he was always being very diplomatic, and he was always expressing gratitude to foreign partners for their support and for whatever, because the deliveries of arms into Ukraine started some weeks before the actual invasion. But at the same time was asking them not to cause this panic and not to, playing it down, basically, playing these fears down. And what I've been hearing since the invasion, so in the past few days, literally, I've been speaking to analysts and commentators who are now processing what's happened and just beginning to think that perhaps he never disbelieved this information. Maybe he did believe it all along, this intelligence information of what he was being told and his team, because again, he's not alone. Ukraine is not like Russia. It's not a sort of single,

you know, one man kind of decision making machine. And the idea is that perhaps they always believed it and Zelensky always believed that intelligence. But with the diplomacy, with the playing down of the fears, with the not showing how seriously he and his team were perhaps taking that intelligence information, they were very cleverly and wisely playing for time in order to prepare for this invasion properly, in order to stock up on arms and weapons, and in order to prepare for this invasion properly, in order to stock up on arms and weapons,

and in order to just work out strategies, processing that intelligence, thinking about which ways, the routes that Russian invasion could take place. And from what we're seeing now, it seems like perhaps that is a realistic interpretation of what's been happening. But as I say, this is all our kind of thoughts and analysis and what

actually really happened. We will only find out at some point in the future. As the Russian military gathered on Ukraine's border, President Zelensky was visiting his troops and sending this message. We just speaking about our independence. That's it. That we are deciding what we want. We are deciding what we'll do. Days later, a man who once made people laugh was leading them against an invasion. I remember in the early hours last Thursday, Zelensky gave this pretty striking, sober speech. There's this one line that really has stuck with me since I heard the speech. When you attack us, you will see our faces.

Not our backs, but our faces. And there was also this address that he gave in Russian on Thursday, where he challenged Putin's attempts to justify the invasion by saying he was going to denazify the country. And in quite a personal way, he said, how could I be a Nazi? Explained it to my grandfather, who went through the entire war and the infantry of the Soviet army and died a colonel in an independent Ukraine. And Katerina, I wonder if you could tell me a bit more about what messages he's been sending since the war began. We played a bit of this Defiant video from Saturday that he did on the streets of Kiev in the introduction, but talk to me about some other messages that you've seen.

introduction, but talk to me about some other messages that you've seen. Well, what Zelensky and his team have been really good at from the beginning of the invasion, they managed to maintain these communication channels with the wider public. In this sort of situation, as I say, there was a huge sense of shock. Panic, certain amount of panic was inevitable. But in many ways, by maintaining these channels of communication, by saying, we're going to update you on what's going on several times a day, and that's what's happening. They're holding these briefings.

So Zelensky himself is speaking to Ukrainians, making these national addresses daily, sometimes twice daily. His advisors, Minister of Defence and representatives of the army are making also these appearances on social media. And their messaging is very calm, very clear. They're saying that we're going to be very honest with you. It's very important for us to have your trust. And the question of trust is incredibly important because in this modern world where fake news and alternative narratives is as the likes that we see from the Russian media, where we're painting this completely

different picture of what's going on. And if you watch Russian media, then Ukrainian army has already laid down its arms and what Russian army is doing in Ukraine is fighting these marginal groups of far-right extremists. And the Ukrainians themselves are targeting their own civilians and sort of all kinds of things like that. And the deceitfulness of that narrative is just so extreme that, by contrast, Zelensky's team, what they're doing, they're being, as I say, very clear, very calm, updating the public regularly on casualties, on the losses, but then also being very sort of affirmative about the successes of the Ukrainian army and how up until now, you now, despite the fact that this invasion and this Russian blitzkrieg was supposed to have taken

over several biggest cities in the first day or in the first two days, none of that had happened. And so this messaging that he's being honest, he's constantly communicating, but also most importantly that he hasn't left. Citizens of the society, here we are, we are here, we are defending our independence, our state, and so it will continue. Glory to our defenders, glory to our defenders, glory to Ukraine. That he is in Kiev, his team is in Kiev. So that's a very sort of caring and respectful relationship that's being forged. And it's certainly very inspiring for many Ukrainians who even since the

beginning of the Russian invasion became much more bigger fans of President Zelensky than they ever were before. Certainly, you're hearing this line repeated a lot right now that the Ukraine embassy in Britain said that he turned down an offer from the US to be evacuated, and that he reportedly said to them, the fight is here, I need ammunition, not a ride. That's right, because he's such a target and there is just this fear and it's quite, you know, it's valid and he could be killed. It's not impossible.

The enemy has marked me as target number one, my family as target number two. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state. Since even, you know, even if there are no troops, Russian troops in Kiev, there are certainly Russian saboteurs or Russian agents who could one way or another infiltrate

the government quarter. And that was the worry. And at some point, you're absolutely right that the Americans said, you know, we can take you out, we can help. And he said, as you say, I need anti-tank ammunition. I don't need it.. Yeah, and that was certainly, again, that gained him another level of respect and admiration from a lot of Ukrainians. Okay, Katarina, I want to thank you so much for this conversation today. I learned a lot, so I thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. All right. That is all for today. Thank you so much for listening to FrontBurner. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.