Volodymyr Zelensky approached a pulpit under bright lights, preparing to deliver a message to the Ukrainian people.
“Today I will start with long-awaited words, which I want to proudly announce,” he said.
“Finally,” he continued. “Ukraine is united […] This is our victory.”
The speech was fiction. It’s from the final scene of “Servant of the People,” a satirical TV show about an unlucky high school teacher, played by Zelensky, who ends up being thrust into the Ukrainian presidency after his corruption rant goes viral.
The series didn’t just make Zelensky a star. It ended up serving as a springboard for his real-life presidential campaign. In April 2019, a month after the show ended, the comedian-turned-politician was elected President of Ukraine.
Zelensky again found himself in front of a pulpit on Friday (25), but the image he depicted in the show’s final moments never looked so far away after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Thursday (24) special coverage of CNN.
The battle for the capital Kiev continued on Friday. Explosions lit up the pre-dawn sky as the Kremlin attacked the city with missiles, forcing people into air-raid shelters.
In his televised speech on Friday morning, Zelensky was again a character, this time playing David to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Goliath. In a dark green T-shirt with dark circles under his eyes, the Ukrainian president struck a defiant tone and praised his armed forces for “brightly defending the country”.
“Now is an important moment,” Zelensky said. “Our country’s fate is being decided.”
Zelensky has also been active on social media, using his Twitter account to post updates and assuring Ukrainians that he is in the country to lead the resistance.
In a video posted Saturday morning titled “Don’t Believe Fake News,” Zelensky revealed that he is still in Kiev.
“I am here. We will not lay down our weapons. We will be defending our country, because our weapon is the truth, and our truth is that this is our land, our country, our children, and we will defend all of that,” he said.
“That’s it. That’s all I wanted to tell you. Glory to Ukraine,” she added.
Zelensky also turned down a US offer to evacuate Kiev, the Ukrainian Embassy in Britain said on Twitter on Saturday.
“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” Zelensky told the US, according to the embassy.
“Ukrainians are proud of their president,” the tweet adds.
‘This gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis’
The full-scale invasion by Russia began on Thursday. Moscow’s forces attacked by land, sea and air, prompting a flurry of international condemnations and sanctions – and questions about Putin’s broader ambitions for Ukraine and its capital.
Putin framed the “military operation” as a necessary action after the United States and its allies crossed Russia’s “red lines” by expanding NATO eastward.
On Friday, Zelensky again urged Putin to hold direct talks.
“There is fighting all over Ukraine now. Let’s sit at the negotiating table to prevent people from dying,” he said in Russian.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia was ready to participate in the Minsk talks, according to a report by Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti. A Zelensky adviser told CNN that Kiev is considering the proposal.
Ukraine’s democratically elected government remains intact, but Putin made it clear this week that he does not see Ukraine as a legitimate sovereign state. On Friday, he called on the Ukrainians to overthrow Zelensky.
“Take power into your own hands,” Putin said. “It looks like it will be easier for us to come to terms (with you) than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis who have settled in Kiev and taken all the Ukrainian people hostage.”
Putin and his government have repeatedly made unfounded and inaccurate claims that the democratically elected Ukrainian government is a “fascist” or “Nazi” regime. Zelensky is Jewish and had family members killed in the Holocaust.
Putin’s comments are unlikely to spur any kind of Ukrainian uprising. Many of Kiev’s residents have left the city, and those who remain are unlikely to support him, considering that Ukraine’s last pro-Russian leader was ousted during a popular uprising in 2014.
Zelensky was elected five years later, defeating incumbent Petro Poroshenko, but his tenure has been difficult. The first months of his administration were swallowed up by the “quid pro quo” scandal that saw former US President Donald Trump’s attempt to pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt from electoral opponent and now President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Covid-19 then devastated the country. Zelensky’s campaign promises, such as ending the war in eastern Ukraine and ending corruption, remain unfulfilled.
But the danger Zelensky faces is no longer just political.
US officials warned lawmakers that Russian forces entering Ukraine from Belarus were about 20 miles from Kiev, sources told CNN.
And intelligence officials in Washington are concerned that the city could fall under Russian control within days. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Zelensky remained the “primary target of the Russian attack”, while Zelensky himself said Russia marked him as its “number one target”.
“They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state,” he said.
Contributors to this story are: Anna Chernova, Kara Fox, Helen Regan and Nathan Hodge of CNN.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
