Volodymyr Zelensky warlord, the role of his life

This February 24, 2022, at dawn, Volodymyr Zelensky has not yet fully returned to the role that will soon be his. Dressed in his usual suit jacket and a white shirt, he published a short video in the morning, barely a minute long, in which he decrees martial law from his office. Around 6 p.m., at the end of an interminable day which saw the Russian air force strike all over the country and the Russian tanks sink towards Kiev, Kharkiv, and in the south of the country towards Kherson, Volodymyr Zelensky appears again . Transformed.

Standing behind a desk marked with the coat of arms of Ukraine, this time wearing a khaki sweater, the Ukrainian president speaks quickly, throws only brief glances at the camera before diving back to the sheet of paper on which is written a speech in the air debriefing : “Our armed forces behave perfectly in the Donbass, the situation in the direction of Kharkiv is very difficult, but our forces are doing everything to protect the city, they are reliable, they are our guys. The most difficult situation is in the south, our troops are fighting fiercely in the outskirts of Kherson. »

But his team made a mistake: filmed in front of a grayish background simply marked “Office of the President of Ukraine”, Volodymyr Zelensky could be anywhere. However, the Russian propaganda machine is already beginning to “push” crazy rumors on social networks claiming that the Ukrainian president has fled the country.

“Glory to our defenders, glory to Ukraine”

The next day, the president’s response took the form of a lightning expedition to the forecourt of the Bankova, the imposing presidential building of white brick and Corinthian colonnades. “The security service was in shock,” recalls with a smile Davyd Arakhamia, leader of the presidential party in Parliament, present at that time alongside the president. Surrounded by some of his closest advisers, Volodymyr Zelensky then takes out his phone to film a video.

The group has to do it again and again – “We laughed too much the first time! »remembers Davyd Arakhamia – and finally manages to publish this badly lit sequence of thirty short seconds where only the Ukrainian president speaks, surrounded by his advisers: ” Goodnight all. The leader of the parliamentary group is here, the head of the presidential office is here, Prime Minister Chmyhal is here, Podolyak is here, the president is here. We are all there, our soldiers are there, we are protecting our independence, our state. It will continue like this. Glory to our defenders, glory to Ukraine. » The impact of this video, which reassures a Ukraine then in shock from the Russian invasion, is enormous: it instantly unites the entire population behind the president.

With a disconcerting ease at first sight, Volodymyr Zelensky thus went in a few hours from president in difficulty to undisputed warlord. The mission of a lifetime for a former comedian and television producer who has long been used to playing roles. “He has changed, of course, but you know, Volodymyr Zelensky has always been a very plastic person, the Zelensky of 2021 was already no longer that of 2019, and that of 2022 is obviously no longer the same”explains Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fessenko.

Chief Communicator

In 2019, the day after his victory, he had already tried to fit into the presidential mould: the low-fronted comedian had donned a tailor-made suit and tie, and the Russian-speaker from Kryvyi Rih, a decrepit mining town in the south of France. Ukraine, had taken up Ukrainian. Volodymyr Zelensky, from the beginning of the Russian invasion, abandoned the presidential costume for the fatigues pants and the khaki sweater that he now wears until Washington or in front of the European Parliament.

He continued to express himself in Ukrainian, even if he has not hesitated since the beginning of the invasion to switch back to his native language to address the Russian population: if he had asked them at the beginning of the war to take to the streets against Putin, now he is content to castigate their “coward’s silence” after a deadly Russian strike on a building in the city of Dnipro that killed more than 40 people in January.

The warlord Zelensky especially drew on his past as an actor and producer to first become chief communicator. “It is his strength, his ability to speak not simply to political elites but to the general public, and in this way to make the public in Western countries put pressure on political elites to support the Ukraine, he does it brilliantly,” summarizes Oleksandr Danyliouk, Minister of Finance between 2016 and 2018 and member of Volodymyr Zelensky’s campaign team in 2019. To the Ukrainians, the president broadcasts a video every day in which his gravelly voice summarizes the events of the day, castigates Russia , and celebrates the army.

Medal ceremony in a warehouse

During his countless audiovisual addresses to heads of state, parliaments, cultural ceremonies (he spoke at the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival), Volodymyr Zelensky harangues, condemns Russian war crimes, and ask for weapons. “We started working on the communication strategy on February 24”says Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the president in charge of this strategy.

“The president understands the media component very well, and knew from the beginning that it was necessary to speak directly to those who live the war, to explain in a clear and succinct way what is happening every day”, he explains from his office on Bankova Street. Volodymyr Zelensky also did not hesitate to travel, went to Kherson a few days after the liberation of the city in November and met soldiers in Bakhmout in December, proceeding to a medal ceremony in a warehouse. “He is always looking for psychological blows”note Davyd Arakhamia.

No time for management

A born communicator, Volodymyr Zelensky also defines himself as an outsider, who came to power ignoring the mysteries of Ukrainian power. In 2019, the political class as well as civil society take a dim view of the arrival of this “clown”, enriched in part thanks to the distribution in Russia of his very popular productions and who claims to be able to put an end to the conflict in eastern Ukraine talking with Vladimir Putin. With no other ally than an extraordinary popular base – he was elected with 73% of the vote, and his party then became the first in the history of modern Ukraine to obtain a majority in Parliament – Volodymyr Zelensky surrounded himself, to direct, relatives of his production company, Kvartal 95.

The Russian invasion completely changed the game by making Volodymyr Zelensky an undisputed and indisputable president. “Competence is much more important today than loyalty”, judge Davyd Arakhamia. The president had already before the war gradually pushed aside his entourage on several occasions. With the Russian invasion, there was no longer any need to rely on his longtime relatives: in June he dismissed Ivan Bakanov, his childhood friend, former director of the Kvartal 95 studio and, at that time, head of the powerful security service of Ukraine, the SBU. The agency’s branch in the south of the country failed to blow up bridges to delay the Russian advance, while a senior SBU officer fled the country hours before the invasion. Above all, Ivan Bakanov was not on the side of the president in the first days of the war.

Rare counter-example: Andriï Iermak, very influential chief of staff of Volodymyr Zelensky and one of the last survivors of the “televisual” core of his entourage. “Iermak is part of Zelensky, he is like Dorian Gray and his portrait”laughs Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, deputy of the opposition party Golos. “Zelensky usually does not have time to be involved in management activities, Iermak does this for him”, he believes. Nor was he afraid to leave the field open to the army in its conduct of war, while remaining in almost daily contact with the general staff.

Fluid governance

Volodymyr Zelensky despises bureaucracy. “He never understood how the state apparatus works”, assures Oleksandr Danyliouk. A defect there also made less problematic by the fluid governance which characterizes Ukraine at war: the warlord Zelensky smiles less, is more annoyed, and decides quickly. “Before, he used to give people a second or third chanceassure Davyd Arakhamia. Today, he no longer has that luxury, if people fail, he replaces them. What has also changed is that we all have multiple responsibilities now, so if a person in charge of a particular subject does not perform well, they will simply pass that responsibility on to someone else. »

Medal ceremony on December 20, 2022, in Bakhmout, on the eastern front line. /AFP

Comfortably installed in the office of a luxurious exhibition center a stone’s throw from Parliament, Davyd Arakhamia knows something about it: on paper, simple leader of the presidential party in Parliament, the man is thanks to the invasion who has become the one of the president’s closest advisers. “I helped get weapons when it’s not my responsibility at all at the base, but the president expects us to be multi-taskers. » The method is certainly not immune to scandals: a corruption case thus put Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov on the spot in January, after a Ukrainian journalist revealed food purchases for the army at prices 2 to 3 times higher than normal.

Nearly a year after the start of the invasion, one subject in particular continues to dominate the thoughts of the Ukrainian president: “He very often asks what is the state of mind of society, what are the main topics of discussion, how the population understands the war”confides Mikhaïlo Podolyak. “The standard of living of the population is particularly important to him, the level of poverty, the power cuts, the situation of businesses”confirm Davyd Akhrmiya.

A very pragmatic concern, explains the adviser: “He is aware that if too many people start fleeing abroad, it could affect the motivation of our soldiers. And this motivation is our most precious asset. We do not have enough weapons, the motivation of the soldiers is our most powerful weapon. »

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