Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long been underestimated as a “comedian”. Wrongly so, because Selenskyi is a leader and a successful entrepreneur, writes the Polish journalist Wojciech Rogacin in his biography, which has now been published in German.
When Vladimir Putin sent his murderous gangs into Ukraine on February 24, the whole world was convinced that they would overrun the neighboring country to the west within a few days.
The war, it was said in Warsaw, Berlin, Paris and Washington, would be over very soon as soon as it had really begun. But that turned out to be a mistake, because hardly anyone reckoned with the brave Ukrainians’ great will to resist. And with its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who proved to be a hero in the crisis of his country and its people and still proves to be every day.
The attack by Russian troops came as no surprise; US President Joe Biden had already warned his colleague from Kyiv about it in September 2021.
But when things started early in the morning on February 24, Selenskyj did not find out from the American secret service or his own military – but from his children. They heard loud detonations and woke their father. Minutes later, the government phone rang.
When Volodymyr Zelenskyy – by then a popular actor and comedian – surprisingly won Ukraine’s presidential election in 2019, the world assumed he would be a weak leader and easily swayed by the Kremlin with the help of the oligarchs. But the opposite was the case: Selenskyj proved to be a man with backbone, courageous and inflexible. In the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he became a true statesman, commanding respect even from his enemies.
This is how the Polish journalist Wojciech Rogacin describes the dramatic moment in which the life of Volodymyr Zelenskyj and millions of Ukrainians changed in one fell swoop in his biography of the president, which has just been published in German.
Rogacin is an experienced journalist and author, well known in his homeland. He was a correspondent for the US magazine Newsweek during the Iraq war from 2003 to 2004, is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper “Polska Times” and also co-founded the press agency Polska Press. And Rogacin is a proven expert on Eastern Europe and Russia.
Selenskyj was clear from the start that his life was in danger. In the meantime, the Russians are said to have made several attempts to kill him. But that didn’t bother the married father of two children. He stayed in Kyiv, holed up in the presidential palace and has been directing his country’s defense from here for more than four months.
When the Americans offered to fly him out, he responded with a sentence that will undoubtedly go down in history: “I don’t need a ride, I need guns.”
Many observers in the West, especially in Germany, rubbed their eyes in amazement. Until the beginning of the war, many politicians and journalists had not really taken this man seriously.
How, they asked themselves, should he, as a career changer in politics, as a former actor and comedian, stand up to Vladimir Putin? But they were all wrong, and so was the aggressor in Moscow. Because it turned out that what were generally considered to be Zelenskyj’s weaknesses are in fact strengths.
Who is this man who amazes the world, encourages his people to persevere, makes loud demands and doesn’t seem to want to give up? Where does he come from, what is his story, what shaped him? What distinguishes him, what makes him so strong? These are all questions answered in Rogacin’s book.
He was born in 1978 in the mining town of Krywyi Rih, a good 400 kilometers southeast of Kyiv. As the child of two academics, he grew up in sheltered but modest circumstances in a huge, inhospitable high-rise estate. Youth gangs were part of everyday life here and even as a youngster you had to know how to assert yourself in this world – which is why the small Volodymyr took courses in wrestling.
Even as a child and teenager, he always wanted to be at the front and he was drawn to the stage early on, so he took part in theater performances at school. From the beginning he knew how to put himself in the limelight, Rogacin found out from parents and friends.
Even when he played only a major supporting role in a play, he managed to draw the audience’s attention from the main actor to himself. But he wasn’t one to work with his elbows. On the contrary: the President’s former teachers describe him as a student who was unusually interested in his classmates. A boy who was strongly influenced by empathy.
His passion was cabaret, which is why he broke off his law studies against the wishes of his parents. He joined a cabaret troupe that soon became more and more successful and got their first TV appearances. At that time Selenskyi was completely apolitical and almost incidentally won the Ukrainian edition of “Let’s dance” as a beginner with a dance world champion.
In 2004, however, the Orange Revolution broke out in Kyiv on the Maidan against the pro-Moscow president who had previously falsified the results of the presidential election. The television stations now demanded political cabaret and Zelenskyj’s group Kvartal 95 delivered it. With increasing success, so that Selenskyj, as head of the group, also entered the film business.
He founded a film office in Moscow, which soon had 500 permanent employees and hundreds of freelancers. A fact that many Western journalists overlooked when they didn’t take Selenskyj seriously after his election as president in 2019 because he was allegedly just a cabaret artist. In fact, he’s a very successful entrepreneur who built his film company from scratch.
He is often accused of having received the support of the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomojskyj. According to Rogacin, the truth is that the station on which his comedy show was broadcast belonged to Kolomojskyj.
When presenting his book in Berlin, Rogacin suggested that Zelenskyi used the oligarch to produce his series and not the other way around. In addition to a very successful series that ran in more than ten countries, he also produced feature films, one of which starred Hollywood star Sharon Stone.
In 2014, after the illegal annexation of Crimea and the occupation of parts of eastern Ukraine by Russia, he broke up camp in Moscow in protest. Production of the first season of a new series that would change everything soon followed: Servants of the People.
It’s about a history teacher who runs as a presidential candidate and surprisingly wins. He holds up a mirror to all the corrupt MPs in Parliament, admonishing them that they are servants of the people when in fact they are just stuffing money into their own pockets.
Zelenskyj co-wrote the screenplays and played the lead role. The series became a huge success. The audience laughed, but more and more people saw exactly the country they wanted in the society that the series president is building.
The main actor slowly came under more and more pressure. Shouldn’t he run for president himself, like the series lead actor did? More and more people in Ukraine asked themselves that. Hesitant at first, Selenskyi finally gave in to the pressure and stepped up. He announced his candidacy in a manner that is characteristic of him.
It was on New Year’s Eve from 2018 to 2019. An episode of “Servants of the People” was running on television, which was suddenly interrupted. Zelenskyi appeared on the screen and announced his candidacy for the spring elections.
When the new season of the fictional series ran in the months before the ballot, the episodes looked like campaign appearances. Fiction and reality blurred. Initially not given any chances, he caught up more and more in an election campaign that ran almost exclusively via social media and was supported by many volunteers.
For many Ukrainians he became a beacon of hope and in the end he won against the incumbent in the runoff with an outstanding 73 percent. At his side was always his attractive and likeable wife Olena, with whom he has been together since school.
Its main goal was to fight corruption, which was widespread in Ukraine. Zelenskyy has had successes, but progress has been much slower than many people had hoped. Approval dropped. But Vladimir Putin made him strong again, because since the Russian attack he has been able to play to all his strengths.
This includes the fact that Volodymyr Zelenskyj is a gifted actor and a brilliant communicator who succeeds in taking people along, convincing them and encouraging them. He dominates social media, and his daily videos from the fortified presidential palace have become legendary.
He benefits from his many years of acting, but above all from the fact that he comes from the middle of the people. He knows what the Ukrainians are thinking and feeling, he understands their fears and their needs in this war that was forced upon them. But giving up is not an option for him.
Many of his early critics, who described him as dubious light-footed, have long had to apologize. And so, at the end of his book, author Rogacin comes to the conclusion: “The story of the young man from the provincial town of Kryvyi Rih, who faced an unimaginably difficult task, is still being written.
But regardless of how his stance will be evaluated in the future, when new world figures are once again compared to past great heads of state, Zelenskyi’s name will be among them.” Putin’s name will come between Hitler and Stalin.
