The Daily - Why Zelensky Poses a Unique Threat to Putin

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, no single figure has antagonized President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as effectively or persistently as President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. His defiant videos and speeches have inspired the West into action and, by his own account, made him a target for Russian assassins. What is it about the comedian-turned-president and his rise to power that poses such a unique threat to Mr. Putin?Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.Have you lost a loved one during the pandemic? The Daily is working on a special episode memorializing those we have lost to the coronavirus. If you would like to share their name on the episode, please RECORD A VOICE MEMO and send it to us at [e-mail]. You can find more information and specific instructions here.Background reading: How Volodymyr Zelensky rallied Ukrainians, and the world, against Putin.Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. President Zelensky has stood down and stood up to and stared down President Putin. President Putin must be astounded, must be surprised, must be really disappointed. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, no single figure has antagonized Vladimir Putin as effectively or persistently as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky has emerged as a hero in his nation and around the world. Whose defiant videos and speeches have inspired the West and, by his own account, made him

the target of assassination by Russia. Zelensky says he is Russia's number one military target and that his family is number two. Today, my colleague, Moscow bureau chief Anton Choyanovsky, explains exactly what it is about Zelensky and his rise to power that poses such a unique threat to Putin. It's Tuesday, March 8th. Tuesday, March 8th. Anton, how did you first get to know Volodymyr Zelensky? I got to know him the way most people in both Russia and Ukraine got to know him,

which is watching his stuff on TV. He had this Saturday Night Live type show on Ukrainian TV that started airing in 2005. And he also had, of course, his breakout hit sitcom called Servant of the People, which first aired in 2015, in which he plays a schoolteacher who suddenly goes viral on social media and becomes the president of Ukraine. And you can imagine that hilarity ensues. Of course. So tell me more about this show. It's this show that, you know, combines kind of the feel-good,

we're doing the right thing attitude of the West Wing with the this-is-how-the-sausages-made comedy of Veep. of the West Wing with the this is how the sausage is made comedy of Veep. One of the most famous moments in the show is where he is negotiating with an official from the International Monetary Fund. Where the IMF is trying to force Ukraine to meet all these conditions in order to get a loan that it needs. And Zelensky goes out with this IMF official to a press conference facing journalists and cameras.

press conference facing journalists and cameras. And instead of giving the usual political lines about, you know, how we're going to be constructive, etc. Zelensky just says in Russian, what I want to say is, you guys can go to hell to the IMF. And Anton, why was a show about a Ukrainian politician, an accidental Ukrainian politician, something you were watching in Russia and sounds like became a hit within Russia? Well, first of all, the show was in Russian. Zelensky is a native Russian speaker, and that was the language that he used in his early, and in fact, through most of his career in show business. The kind of entertainment market of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, you know, the whole Russian speaking former Soviet Union remained very much intertwined. Zelensky actually spent a lot of his early career in Moscow.

He toured as a comedian. He toured all around Russia and the former Soviet Union. You know, obviously, if you're a Ukrainian comedian, you're probably looking to break into the Russian market because it's much bigger. those countries remained intertwined culturally, even after they started drifting apart politically in the early 2000s. That's really interesting. Did the Russian-Ukrainian relationship ever appear within this show? It did. Certainly, the complicated issues of language and identity in Ukraine very much did. You know, there's this memorable moment where, so Zelensky's character in the show, this school teacher, Holoborodko, is a Russian speaker.

And then he gets into office and he suddenly has to learn Ukrainian because, you know, Ukrainian politicians are expected to speak Ukrainian in public. And then, you know, there's some humorous moments in which he's trying to learn the language and messing up the words. So yeah, you know, that kind of issue of Ukrainian identity was also something that he lampooned a bit in his show. So if you're a Russian TV consumer, like, say, you, Anton, it would be easy to identify with Zelensky and his character on the show, and it sounds like the show itself

is reinforcing the idea that there's a kinship between Ukraine and Russia. Well, I mean, the show itself is not really all that much about the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. But if you look at the economic benefits of being successful in such a big country. The show itself is in Russian. So yes, it's, you know, it's something that in this region, it's kind of almost unsaid. Like, yes, there are so many cultural and linguistic connections still between the countries of the former Soviet Union and certainly between

Russia and Ukraine. But that does not, of course, necessarily mean that they have to have a political kinship as well. Right. But enough of a connection for this show to be a success. Yeah, totally. And, you know, between this show and Zelensky's clips on his variety show going viral on YouTube, he became a star in Russia as well as in Ukraine. So then how does it come to pass that this very successful actor runs for president of Ukraine? Добрый вечер, друзья. Совсем скоро мы встретим Новый год и продолжим вечерний квартал. So this was 2019. In fact, he announced his candidacy on the New Year's Eve edition of his show, December 31st, 2018.

So then he runs for president. I remember visiting Kiev at the time and talking to Western diplomats who were all feverishly catching up on his TV show, telling me, this is just so strange, you know, it's becoming so hard to tell what's fact and what's fiction. Zelensky is making good on his promise to turn Ukrainian politics upside down. The campaign has been extraordinary, not least because Mr. Zelensky has avoided

almost all of the things that candidates normally do in elections. Just as an example, in the TV show, Zelensky's character as he's running for president takes to addressing voters doing these selfie videos and recording himself talking to regular Ukrainians. And then Zelensky's real-life presidential campaign videos take a similar style. And are also interspersed with clips from Servant of the People, the show. So, yeah. This is very, very meta. It was very meta.

His campaign has barely existed in real life. The only time the candidates have publicly exchanged views by phone, it was a disaster. What? Crapka ta crapka. Also, by the way, Zelensky's political party is called Servant of the People, as in the name of his TV show. It's as if Martin Sheen ran for president and registered a party called the West Wing. We don't know how serious Zelensky was, of course, when he first ran.

But the fact is, he proved remarkably successful as a candidate, you know, because he just had such a fresh approach to politics, such a youthful approach. It was such a contrast to kind of the staid and many believed corrupt political establishment of Ukraine. It was a really remarkable rise that he had. Well, explain that. What were his key messages in that 2019 campaign? Well, one, which was very popular, was opposing corruption, promising to be more running a more honest and clean government. And then the second one was to end the war in eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky really drew a contrast with Petro Poroshenko, the incumbent. Poroshenko was someone with very close ties in western governments. And so Zelensky came in drawing a contrast to that. Zelensky talked about wanting to sit down with Putin directly and make a deal. You know, he signaled that he could be willing to compromise with Putin to basically stop the dying there in Ukraine's war with Russian backed separatists. And that was something that actually at the time made a lot of Western diplomats and others nervous. People thought that Zelensky might end up being too soft on Putin and lack the experience to really be able to take him on. This is a fascinating piece of information in

retrospect, that Zelensky's campaign for president made people think that he could be quite close to Putin and to Russia. Yes. You know, Zelensky ran with no political experience, certainly with no foreign policy experience. I remember I was there at one of his first meetings with foreign correspondents. We asked him, so what are you going to do? How are you actually going to end the war? And he didn't have any specific idea. He spoke about sort of the idea that, well, if he were to be able to sit down with Putin, man to man, that they'd be able to make a deal and finally end this. So there was a lot of skepticism

that Zelensky was the right man for the job, in particular when it came to foreign policy. But in the broader public, that message of ending the war was extremely popular. And it was even popular in the more Russia-friendly corners of Ukraine in the south and in the east, where people sort of were positive about the idea of kind of rebuilding some ties to Russia. So there we have it. Fact is following fiction. Ukraine's TV president is going to become

Ukraine's real president. A 41-year-old actor and comedian with no political experience whatsoever has won today's presidential election in Ukraine. He wins in a blowout, 73% of the vote. Wow. So just to recap, at the moment Zelensky becomes Ukraine's president, overwhelmingly, given that vote tally, his relationship to Russia is,

as a celebrity within Russia, because of his television shows, and a celebrity within Russia who has communicated that he thinks some form of peace with Putin and a good working relationship with Putin is possible. Yes, exactly. So did Putin welcome Zelensky's victory? It would seem like he would. Exactly. So did Putin welcome Zelensky's victory? It would seem like he would. There was optimism in Russia, certainly. I mean, you could see it in the polls when people were asked their views on Ukraine.

Really, there was a big jump upward. And in the Kremlin, yes, also. I mean, the reaction was more muted, but clearly there was an idea there too that this was a guy that they could work with, someone who might be, you know, in the Kremlin's kind of conspiratorial thinking, a guy who is less dependent on the West and might act more independently. So when does Zelensky's relationship with Russia as president start to change? I think it starts to change pretty quickly in that first year, 2019. He meets with Putin in person at the end of 2019 in Paris. You know, they try to get some peace talks off the ground, but it becomes clear pretty quickly,

becomes clear pretty quickly, especially sort of as the pandemic comes around in 2020, that it is much easier said than done that you're going to make a deal with Russia. And you could really see Zelensky becoming more and more frustrated. You know, there was one of the first points of tension where you could see there was a fork in the road and Zelensky went a certain direction was when Russia was offering its Sputnik coronavirus vaccine to Ukraine, which would have been a huge PR victory for the Kremlin if Zelensky had agreed to it. And he did not. He refused to do it. He held out for Western vaccines. So that was one early sign of Zelensky taking a pro-Western route and being skeptical, being cautious of getting too close to Russia. And then he became more outspoken threat to his authority and his power. That's right. And I should add that in addition to being frustrated with Russia, Zelensky was also seeing an increasingly receptive attitude in the West.

an increasingly receptive attitude in the West. You know, Zelensky was elected in 2019 when Donald Trump was president, a man who was not all that interested in helping Ukraine take a pro-Western path and also was not all that critical of President Putin. But then Biden becomes president in January 2021, and he comes in, of course, with a message of much greater support for Ukraine to take a path that brings it closer to Western institutions and takes it farther away from Russia. So what happens is just days after Biden is inaugurated, Zelensky cracks down on a business tycoon in Ukraine named Viktor Medvedchuk. And that's important because Medvedchuk is basically the closest link remaining

between Ukraine and the Kremlin. Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk's daughter. Medvedchuk runs a political party that is fairly pro-Russian. He was running several TV channels that were pro-Russian. And early last year, Zelensky closes those TV channels, starts an investigation into Medvedchuk. Last May, Medvedchuk was put under house arrest under suspicion of treason. So Zelensky took all these steps that were very aggressive. And that was something that clearly annoyed Putin greatly. And in retrospect, was likely one of the factors that exacerbated the situation between Ukraine and Russia. that exacerbated the situation between Ukraine and Russia. So Anton, you're saying the shift in the U.S. presidency from Trump to Biden represented to Zelensky that he had more Western support

and that basically he had some backup if he wanted to cross Putin. And so it's then that he starts taking more and more aggressive steps to move away from Russia. Exactly. And as his presidency progressed, he found himself more and more on a collision course with Vladimir Putin. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Anton, what happens next is pretty well known. Putin becomes more and more inflamed by Zelensky and by the possibility, however remote,

that under Zelensky, Ukraine might end up joining NATO. Putin begins amassing more and more troops on Ukraine's borders and eventually, of course, invading Ukraine. Given everything that you just told us, what stood out to you about how Zelensky responded to that? Well, Zelensky responds showing himself as a master communicator, you know, showing his knowledge of how to get the gravity of the moment to cross in a moment of crisis that in some ways recalls his TV show. You know, remember, we were talking about the

selfie videos that he was doing as a presidential candidate on his sitcom and then as a real life presidential candidate. And recently, he's been doing selfie videos from a city under siege, you know, in a t-shirt, unshaven, showing his people that he's there. He hasn't fled. He's ready to defend his country. And importantly, too, he's not just speaking to the Ukrainian people. He's speaking to the Russian people. Remember, I mentioned that whole bit in his TV show where he's a Russian speaker trying to learn Ukrainian because Ukrainian officials are expected to speak Ukrainian in public. Well, recently, he's doing public addresses in Russian. He's been speaking his native Russian in order to reach Russians directly. And the first such address was the night of February 23rd,

in the early morning of the 24th, hours before Russia launched its attack. Zelensky posted a video to social media saying, Я обращаюсь к российским гражданам как к гражданинам Украины. С вами нас разделяют. Что это пламя принесет освобождение народу Украины. even a real country. So he says, for instance, you were told that this flame, referring to the war, will bring freedom to the Ukrainian people. But the people of Ukraine are already free. Hear our voices. We want peace.

And he ends the speech by saying, I don't want to answer this question, but the answer depends only on you, the citizens of Russia. Do the people of Russia want war, he asks? I would like to be able to answer this, but the answer depends only on you, the citizens of the Russian Federation. So he's telling Russians that Ukraine is not a threat to them, that even though these countries share all these ties, that doesn't mean essentially that

Russia needs to invade the Ukraine in order to secure those ties. You know, Putin's argument, as you know, is Ukrainians and Russians are one people. Putin claims that the West is controlling Ukraine, that the West is using Ukraine as, you know, a platform to attack Russia, basically taking away any agency from the Ukrainian people. And here's Zelensky himself in Russia saying, no, that's not true. Ukraine has made its own decision. And despite all those ties, despite all that kinship that, of course, Zelensky himself and his personal story symbolizes, Ukraine has chosen a different path. That's Zelensky's basic argument. Right. And that's the attitude, it seems, of most Ukrainians and why they would be compelled to take up arms and fight so forcefully against Russia. But I'm wondering how Zelensky's message in this speech goes over with Russians.

Well, in the hours after that first speech, the invasion happens. the invasion happens. Russia starts to bomb Ukrainian targets and Russian tanks move across the border into Ukraine. Zelensky's speech in Russian is ricocheting through Russian social media accounts. People are clearly seeing that in the country. And then that first day, February 24th, Russians take to the streets. In dozens of cities across the country, there are thousands of arrests

of people who are doing things like chanting no to war on the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and elsewhere. Very much doing what Zelensky is, in a sense, asking them to do, oppose this war. Exactly. I mean, it's a very, I think, visceral feeling for many Russians that this war is an abomination. And certainly hearing Zelensky address them, you know, you can't

discount the influence of that either. So not long after that, Zelensky posts another one of these videos where he's basically saying, thank you for hearing us to the Russian people. He says, to all the citizens of the Russian Federation who come out to protest, I want to say, we see you. This means that you heard us. This means that you're beginning to trust us. Fight for us. Fight against the war. he's having a kind of running conversation with the Russian people. And knowing what you've told us about his celebrity within Russia and how Russians feel about him, that kind of running

conversation must resonate in a unique and powerful way. That's right. I think for a certain segment of the population, his message is landing. And again, this isn't just a faceless president of another country. This is a film celebrity that a lot of people knew long before he became president. And Zelensky becomes relentless about these communications. In the days after the invasion, he's doing these speeches on video every day, multiple times a day. Of course, a lot of them are directed at Ukrainians. Some are directed at the West, where he's saying that the West needs to do more to help Ukraine financially and militarily. But he also continues to direct some of these dispatches at Russians, who he refers to at one point as peaceful people of a belligerent state.

Mm-hmm. It seems he's working very hard to separate the Russian people in this moment from their leader. He's saying, I'm speaking to you because Putin doesn't represent you. He's trying to drive a wedge between the leadership of Russia in this moment and the Russian people. So how does the leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the Kremlin respond to these Zelensky communications? Well, Michael, their message is Zelensky is totally out of his depth.

They're saying he's controlled by Western puppet masters and what the Kremlin calls falsely Nazis in Ukraine. Zelensky also keeps saying he wants to talk to Putin directly. He wants to negotiate an end to the fighting while the Kremlin has been saying there's nothing to talk about. Sort of very dismissive of Zelensky as a leader and of the idea that he may have any influence. And the fact is, there are plenty of Russians who are willing to believe that narrative. I was actually just before we got on looking at some of the comments on Russian social media about the Zelensky videos. And one typical kind of comment is, oh, he's a great guy, cool, looks just like a typical Russian or Ukrainian working class man.

But it's too bad that all those neo-Nazis have gotten to him. That's the Kremlin propaganda breaking through. So we have to be cautious not to overstate, I think, the impact of the strategy that Zelensky has taken. Understood. But it is clear that Zelensky's message, especially to Russians, is getting under Vladimir Putin's skin. Absolutely. I think it is. And I think that what Zelensky symbolizes is really an existential

problem for the Kremlin, which is that he's someone steeped in the Russian-speaking culture of the post-Soviet space. He comes from a Russian-speaking city in southeastern Ukraine, and he's someone who has built his career on his appeal in Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. And despite all that, he wants to take his country on a pro-Western path and does not want to subjugate it to the dominance of Vladimir Putin. So that's what makes him such a potent symbol politically in the region across the former Soviet space and also, I think, makes him such a danger symbol politically in the region across the former Soviet space, and also, I think,

makes him such a danger to Putin. And so is that why so many people believe that Putin wants Zelensky dead, wants to kill him? Yeah. And, you know, Zelensky talks about it himself all the time. He makes that a big part of his communications. Zelensky trying to show people that he's not afraid and trying to set an example, I think, for the people of Ukraine. And also show to the Russian people watching him that he remains and the Ukrainian people remain defiant. Right, and each one of these videos

is also a way for Zelensky to say, quite simply, I'm still here, I'm still alive, I'm still in charge, which is itself a kind of provocation to Putin. Exactly. Because, you know, the Russians, I think, if you listen to Russian state TV and to Russian politicians, they clearly expected him to flee as soon as the war began. But I'm really curious. Doesn't everything we're talking about here make Volodymyr Zelensky someone whose death might backfire on Putin?

Zelensky's deep connections to the Russian people, his effectiveness at communicating to both them and Ukrainians in this moment. If Putin were to take Zelensky out, couldn't he then become a martyr? And wouldn't that end up being bad for Putin? Well, I mean, this war has already been so shocking in so many ways that we can't really make predictions. And one of the things I think that's been shocking to the Kremlin is just how much of a determined and dignified leader Zelensky has emerged under this incredible

pressure. And so if Zelensky were to be killed, there would be a cost to Putin. He will have inspired Ukrainians. And I think just as importantly, he will have really, I think, will have really, I think, succeeded in drawing this line between the Kremlin and the people of Russia, you know, in this incredible position where his country is under fire, under attack from cruise missiles and artillery and tanks. And even as that's happening, he's reaching out to the Russian people next door and saying, we still kind of understand you. We don't throw you all into one pot with your leader. That message is resonating right now in this time of crisis. And no matter what, live or die, that will be a big part of Zelensky's legacy. Anton, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Michael. Now it looks like every day is like this, and every day is like this. On Monday night, in his latest self-recorded video, Zelensky spoke to Ukrainians from his presidential office in Kiev, the first time he has appeared there since the war began. In remarks seemingly aimed at Putin, Zelensky declared that he was not afraid of anyone and rebuked Russian forces for attacking civilian sites, including a bread factory.

Think about it, he said. To fire at the bread factory. Think about it, he said. To fire at the bread factory. Who could you be to do that? We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, the state of Florida said it would recommend that healthy children not be vaccinated against COVID-19, directly contradicting guidance from federal health officials. The recommendation was approved by the state's controversial Surgeon General, a Republican appointee who has expressed skepticism of the vaccine's effectiveness.

Is that a good policy? Absolutely not. Let me just note that... Asked about the decision, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki expressed alarm, citing data that shows unvaccinated teenagers are far likelier to be hospitalized with COVID than vaccinated teenagers. So it's deeply disturbing that there are politicians peddling conspiracy theories out there

and casting doubt on vaccinations when it is our best tool against the virus and the best tool to prevent even teenagers from being hospitalized. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Rochelle Banja, Chelsea Daniel, and Ricky Nowetzki. It was edited by Patricia Willans and Paige Cowett, contains original music by Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Daniel Friedman. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.

See you tomorrow.