Today, Explained - Volodymyr vs. Vladimir

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Volodymyr Zelenskyy went from a middling peacetime president to a heroic wartime president. Kyiv Independent’s Oleksiy Sorokin explains from an undisclosed location in western Ukraine. Vox’s Emily VanDerWerff also explains, but from her home in Los Angeles. This episode was produced by Will Reid, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramos from The Entire World is Fixated on Ukraine. But not just on Ukraine. People are fixated AF on the country's comedian, actor-turned-president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky's kind of made himself the main character of this story. And today on the show, we're going to figure out how exactly he did that. And we're going to get to hear from someone in the middle of the war and someone very far away from it in Los Angeles. Let's start in Ukraine. I left Kiev a couple of days ago, and I will probably not mention the exact location, but I'm in Ukraine and planning on returning to Kyiv.

This is Oleksii Sorokin. He's the political editor at the Kyiv Independent. I asked him if he thought his comedian president would make a good leader in war. Well, we had our doubts, but now the way he handles the situation, it's obviously beyond everyone's expectations. And we're so happy, a lot of us, that we were wrong. Who is he before he becomes a comedian? What's his early life like? What are his roots? Zelensky is from Krivoy Dih.

That's a small town in the middle of Ukraine. Кривий Ріг – це маленька місто в місті України. Я б сказав, що в ньому не було нічого особливого про його віру чи його життя, перед тим, як він стає фейсмом українським комедієм. Готовий, готовий. Всі готові? Так. Раді України. Лідер радикальної партії. Перший раз так стою. films most of them are comedy movies so he was a very successful TV personality but nobody would expect him to be where he is right now a couple of years prior to running his production studio created a TV series Несколько лет назад, его студия создала серию на телевидении, которая называется «Серванты народов», которая сейчас называется его партой. В ней Зеленский играл учебного ученика, который случайно стал президентом.

Василий Петрович Голобородько? Да. Доброе утро, господин президент я понимаю что многие боятся этих реформ как огня уж простите господа придется забыть про This was a hit TV series, and many people decided to support Zelensky after this show. When he's running for president, what is his pledge to the Ukrainian people? Well, he never campaigned on the slogan, I'm a funny guy, everybody likes me. His main campaign promises was first stopping the war. Russia has invaded Ukraine back in 2014, occupied Crimea, launched a war in Donbass. That was his number one promise. And the second campaign promise was defeat

corruption because Petro Poroshenko, the former president, he was seen as part of the establishment. There was like corruption probes all around him. So he was this established, allegedly corrupt politician. And Zelensky basically united all the protest votes around him and was able to completely dismantle the old Ukrainian political system. Almost as soon as he took office, President Zelensky was in the middle of a political scandal. But it wasn't a political scandal in Ukraine. It was a political scandal in the United States. Perfect. The call was perfect. It was on that call President Trump told the Ukrainian Perfect. The call was perfect. It was on that call President Trump told the Ukrainian president, I would like you to do us a favor,

and asked him to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory about Democratic emails. What did Ukrainians think about the now infamous, quote-unquote, perfect phone call President Zelensky had with the former president of the United States. The impeachment probe of President Donald Trump was the first major political scandal for Zelensky, and obviously he wasn't ready for that attention. No, you heard that we had, I think, good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things. And I think, and you read it, that nobody pushed me.

In other words, no pressure. The international public, international media had Zelensky in the spotlight. And this was the first major task that Zelensky had to solve. But I wouldn't say that it had some kind of influence on Ukrainian domestic politics. It had major influence on Ukraine's foreign politics, especially the relations with the United States. But in Ukraine, many people wouldn't even notice it. How was his presidency going immediately before the invasion? Was he seen as a competent leader? Was he seen as a strong opponent to Vladimir Putin?

Interestingly, Zelensky entered a very rocky time in terms of domestic politics. His presidential ratings and his party ratings were decreasing. He was still the most popular politician in Ukraine, but not because of his own policies, but because he didn't have a strong opponent. Why was his popularity waning at the time? He promised so much and people had their hopes were so high. And obviously, Zelensky and his party, most of whom had zero political experience, couldn't cope with that. The most notable example was the judicial reform

and multiple corruption scandals inside his party. If you're a man of principles, yes, why are you working for a man who the anti-corruption authorities say has stolen all this money from the people of this country? Every new political scandal or problem fit on his electoral support. Let's just talk about the moment Russia's invading Ukraine one week ago. Do people look to each other and go, oh no, we voted for the comedian?

Or do they feel confident? I think nobody was asking that question the moment Russia invaded, because the first emotion that everybody had was shock. Zelensky, yes, is the commander in chief, but I think most people had high hopes for the Ukrainian military, the military staff, and Zelensky was their second thought. And how does Zelensky become everyone's first thought? Well, the way he reacted, the way he led the army during the first several days, his constant video addresses, his willingness to stay in Kiev, which is bombarded by Russia he was able to show the world that maybe he

wasn't the best peacetime leader he's the perfect wartime leader that we now know that Zelensky will do everything he can to lead Ukraine through this. He was able to show the world that Ukraine has a strong leader, that Ukrainians are ready to fight. And he was able to gather international support. I think that if Zelensky would flee or if Ukrainian defenses were breached early on, then Ukraine wouldn't have gathered all those sanctions against Russia, financial aid, military aid. I think the world now sees that Ukraine is ready to fight and the world is ready to help Ukraine fight this war because of Zelensky. Thank you. is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month.

And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. R-A-M-P dot com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Good morning, Mr. Koloborodko. Can I connect you with Angela Merkel? Yes, you can connect. Okay, we're back. We just spoke with Alexei about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's transition from sort of fumbling peacetime president to outstanding wartime president. But we want to figure out what exactly it is about his video testimonials and his place in the culture right now that is so impactful. So

we're turning to Emily Vanderwerf. She's a cultural critic here at Vox, and she recently wrote about this very thing. Emily, what's your theory? I'm so glad that we've turned to me, a white American lady, to talk about this instead of a Ukrainian. But I mean, I have been consuming his videos like anybody else, and I've been very impressed by them. And I think that people who think a lot about politics, and I include myself in that number, are people who often discount the value of creating the content that goes into politics, of being a great performer, of being someone who's comfortable on camera, of being someone who knows how to make the images that go on camera. And that is something that Vladimir Zelensky is really good at. He's been

doing it since he was a teenager. He's been on television since he was in his 20s. He's been a comedian and a performer and an actor and all of these things. And like everything you can see sort of going into the videos he's making, which are just like very well made and very well done. And he's very good on camera and you're compelled by him in a way you're not a lot of politicians who are more obviously staged. And the internet loves to celebrate Zelensky's back catalog these days. For those of us who aren't on the internet 24-7, can you run us through some of his greatest hits? Yeah, he's been in a whole bunch of movies. Mostly they seem to be like kind of romantic comedies. Здравствуйте, Настя. Не согласитесь сегодня вечером со мной где-нибудь? А вас не смущает, что мы знакомы всего несколько минут? His breakthrough role was like playing a supporting player in somebody else's movie, which is a classic way for guys to break into the movies and romances. He was the voice of Paddington within the country that they're in charge of.

I think that would maybe heal the planet. He's done sketch comedy. He's hosted sketch comedy shows. There's a briefly viral sketch of him playing the piano with his penis so he said and he was on dancing with the stars and like there's this video of him just being like very dramatic and very dancey with his partner and it's like so fun to watch and that's like just kind of scratching the surface. I think the most notable example is that he played the president of Ukraine from 2015 to 2019 on a show called Servant of the People, where he played a high school teacher who becomes president.

He's going to be the anti-corruption, the good guy, all of that. And it's, of course, a very silly comedy and so when he won the presidency uh you know there was sort of this well he played the president on tv and now he's the president in real life and i think that that was kind of kind of a joke i think we at least chuckled about it on this show you could have put up maybe a penguin or a camel or dog or a random person and they would have won this election. I remember this happening because it was sort of novel and interesting and fun, I guess. And now, like, we're seeing the good side of what happens

when a politician is really good at television, when we are so used to either A, really staged politicians, or B, people like Donald Trump who have understood that television is best when you're just sort of feeding it red meat. And we've seen the other way that politicians who are good at television can go, which is just like sort of constantly throwing things out there and seeing what happens. I'm glad you brought up the former president, because it's not like this idea of a celebrity politician is unprecedented. There's that guy, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger, there's Ronald Reagan, Dr. Oz is trying to make

it work, Jesse Ventura. What makes Volodymyr Zelensky different in this moment? I do think it's the moment more than it is the man. It's the fact that Ukraine is in the midst of this invasion from a larger world power, which makes us naturally sort of sympathetic to him and naturally think of him as this person. He's trying, he's doing his best, and this is such a difficult situation to be in, and he's leaning into that. First of all, he's just a really good wartime speechmaker. They don't know a thing about our capital, about our history, but they all have orders to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all.

He gets up there and he says things that are compelling, and he often kind of says them off the cuff. There's a video of him in the streets of Kiev after the Russian media was like, well, he's fled Ukraine. He made a video where he's in the streets of Kiev with much of his cabinet. And they're all just kind of hanging out and just like being bros and he frames it using the camera on his phone like it's you know kind of a bunch of like guys hanging out at a college party except they're in the streets of Kiev during a war and like it is so compelling because I think we're so used to countries waging war and then leaders being

very far away from it. Certainly, Vladimir Putin is not on the front, on the other side. And certainly, you know, when the United States is involved in an invasion of somewhere or in a war of some sort, the president is not showing up to be there present for the main fighting. But I keep coming back to this video he made very early in the conflict, which was a direct plea to the Russian people. And it's worth noting that for most of his movie career, he was working in Russia. So his films were being shown in Ukraine, but also in Russia.

That's a big part of why this video works, because he's addressing people who know who he is a little bit. But a thing I really think has gone under remarked upon about the video is that it is not framed in the way we think of it as. He's standing off to the left of a blurred out image of Ukraine, a map of Ukraine in the background, and he's delivering straight to camera. He's delivering it like he's a newscaster, basically. Automatically, you are in a place where it feels authoritative because we have this sort of subconscious relation to the newscaster guy stepping in and telling us what's really going on. It feels authoritative and it feels approachable and it feels human in a way it doesn't when,

for instance, President Biden is standing behind a podium or sitting at the desk in the Oval Office, which is an image we're so used to that we kind of tune it out. This isn't just effective politics right now. I mean, this is veering quite fittingly, I guess, considering his background into entertainment. I mean, people on the internet are thirsting for President Zelensky, no? Yes, there have been some horny tweets. And TikToks. It's not the time or place to have a crush on President Zelensky.

But. And that has added up to a lot of people being online and saying, you know, what a hot guy. Y'all got one thing to say. President Zelensky? Daddy. All these little boys after midnight. I'm like, I've seen criticisms of this as being inappropriate or, you know, cringe or whatever from an audience that is not affected by this conflict. Hey, also, this is just your gentle Southern mama reminder that President Vladimir Zelensky is married.

I'm specifically talking about all of the naughty videos. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. But like this veers into an area where when big, bad, scary things happen, our brains get distracted by things that are not the big, bad, scary thing. And Zelensky has placed himself in a place where he can be the object of, we'll make him our hero. We'll make some jokes about his old comedy and his old performances. We'll get really drawn into him as a person. And an inevitable offshoot of that is horny tweets. And like, I don't feel like shaming anybody for those. You have your emotional reactions to the scary world that you have. And I don't know, maybe don't tweet about it. Yeah. I mean, it's important to remember that ultimately what we are enjoying when we enjoy a Zelensky video, is wartime propaganda.

Yes. And we're in a situation where one of the acceptable reasons to wage a war, and putting heavy air quotes around that, is if your country is invaded by a larger country, by a foreign power, by someone who is pushing in and trying to incur upon your territory and take over your territory, which is exactly what's happening to Ukraine. So in terms of propaganda, he doesn't have a very large hill to climb. He just kind of has to be like, hey, this is not good and we're fighting back. And we're like, yeah, that makes sense. So I think that that is a big part of why it works. And when I say propaganda, there's such a dirty word quality to that word but i also think it's propaganda toward a cause that is a fundamentally sympathetic one uh for

most of the people watching it and like propaganda isn't always bad to be clear he's being invaded by a much larger army he doesn't have a lot of weapons at his disposal, but he's really good at being on camera. So here's the weapon he can use and it's working. Right. What he lacks in army, he makes up for in propaganda. Whereas at least in the West, it would appear that what Russia has in army, it really seems to lack in propaganda. Which I think if you had asked anybody three weeks ago, who's going to win the PR war here, you would have said Putin because Putin has just a tremendously large, usually effective propaganda operation. He sends out all of those shirtless photo ops where he's trying to be the world's most masculine mask man.

I do think three weeks ago, we would have thought, oh, Russia's going to win the PR war too, because they also have a massive global media operation. Ukraine doesn't have a similar element. So it is really remarkable, and it really comes down to his skills as someone who's good at being on camera, as someone who's good at making things, as someone who's good at being on camera, as someone who's good at making things, as someone who is good at filmmaking. And as a cultural critic, what can I say but, I mean, hurrah. Emily Vanderwerf, she's a cultural critic here at Vox.com, I love my wife, I love my dog. edited by Matthew Collette, engineered by Afim Shapiro, and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. The rest of the Today Explained team includes Halima Shah, Hadi Mawagdi, Victoria Chamberlain, and Miles Bryan.

Our supervising producer is Amina Alsadi. My co-host is Noel King. Vox's VP of audio is Liz Kelly-Nelson. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld. We had extra engineering help from Louis Mitchell last week, but I'm thanking him now. Thanks, Louis. Bye.