The comedian-turned-president came to power on the promise of bringing peace to Ukraine’s east. Now he’s taken on a wartime role.
“Today I will start with long-awaited words, which I wish to announce with pride,” he said. “Finally,” he continued. “Ukraine is United… This is our victory.” The speech was fiction. It is from the closing scene of “Servant of the People,” a satirical TV show about a down-on-his-luck high-school teacher, played by Zelensky, who is thrust into the Ukrainian presidency after his rant about corruption goes viral. The series didn’t just make Zelensky a star. It eventually served as the springboard for his real-life presidential campaign. In April 2019, within a month of the show’s finale, the comedian-turned politician was elected Ukraine’s president. Zelensky again found himself in front of a lectern Friday, but the picture he outlined in the show’s final moments has never felt further away after Russian forces invaded Ukraine Thursday. The battle for the capital, Kyiv, continued to rage Friday. Explosions lit up the sky as the Kremlin targeted the city with missile strikes before dawn, forcing people into air raid shelters. In his Friday morning televised address, Zelensky was again a man in character, this time playing David to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Goliath. In a dark green tee shirt with dark circles under his eyes, the Ukrainian president struck a defiant tone and praised the country’s armed forces for “brilliantly defending the country.
