Late Friday night, a short man dressed in khaki went outside in the center of Kyiv, holding a cellphone to take a selfie. Behind him stood four other men, also in khaki. They were Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the four highest-ranking members of his government.
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"Good evening, everyone," Zelenskyy said, gesturing to those behind him. "The faction chairman is here, the head of the President's Council is here, the prime minister is here, counselor Podolyak is here, and so is the president. We are all here, our army is here, our citizens are here, and we are all defending our independence, our country, and that is how it will be in the future. Glory to our fighting men, glory to our fighting women. Glory to Ukraine!" And the four behind him answered, "Glory to heroes!"
This 32-second video contained Zelenskyy's rise as leader of his nation, which is fighting the superpower neighbor that invaded its territory, against all odds. Zelenskyy, who was elected president in 2019 after an impressive career as a screenwriter, comedian, and actor but with zero political experience, seems to have grown into a national hero in the past few days. The man, who only a few years ago played a TV character who was almost accidentally elected president has grown into the enormous role, and the moment that has befallen his country.
Every few hours, he gets up to give updates, describing the situation on the ground in short sentences, not whitewashing the situation, talking about the people being killed. But he never stops praising the fighting spirit of the army, the national guard, the police, the border police, and the citizens themselves. He makes his speeches in Ukrainian, but repeatedly switches to Russian, appealing to Russian society and its leadership to stop the unnecessary war, expressing thanks to the demonstrators standing up for Ukraine, talking about the Russian soldiers who have been killed for no reason, without even knowing where they were going.
But the video he filmed with the top echelon of the country's leadership, outside under the chilling Kyiv sky, underscored the enormous difference between Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Jew is Ukrainian in every fiber of his being, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two people share a first name, but are separated by a chasm when it comes to politics, image, and personality.
While Zelenskyy has given and continues to give sharp, relevant speeches about the situation, Putin took up viewers' time with arcane and largely amateur lectures about Ukrainian history (as he sees it), rejecting its right to independence. While Zelenskyy speaks standing up, Putin declared a "special operation" and justified it while sitting behind his desk, his fingers tapping its surface agitatedly. While Zelenskyy took selfies with his close colleagues, Putin has recently been seen with his colleagues repeating the same horror show at Russia's defense council, with senior officials in Moscow being called to the microphone to declare that they support the war.
Putin, by the way, was sitting far away from them. Zelenskyy's 32-second video was enough to illustrate the difference between a leader who was democratically elected, one who keeps in direct contact with the citizens, and an autocrat who declares war in his office, alone. Between a leader who is socially connected and a president who does not even use the internet, and receives his information printed in file folders.
One president, in times of peace, is far from being innocent of mistakes and populism, but is now uniting an entire nation behind him; the other, whose nation's propaganda has long since made him a demigod, is now finding (unless it's being kept from him) that thousands of protests against him and against the war have been stopped throughout Russia, and that hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions against him.
Two heroes – one of whom, in peace time, has a 33% approval rating (an astronomical number in Ukrainian politics), and the other of whom "wins elections" with 70% of the vote. If we take a step back from the here and now, Zelenskyy's open updates in general and the video in particular illustrate Ukraine's pro-European orientation, which is deeply rooted in the Ukraine's political tradition, in contrast to that of Moscow, as well as its political reality, especially since 2014.
The vast majority of Ukrainians want to turn toward the West, want elections, democracy, and openness – and the growing rejection of these values in Russia only feeds their passion. No matter how the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends, the gaps between Ukraine, Ukrainians (and many Russians) and the Kremlin government will not be forgotten.
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