Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has emerged as a resolute and unifying wartime leader for his country during the first days of the Russian invasion, ...
In difficult times, we must support our country." * "[But] we must unite. We are not putting down any arms.
History has found the Ukrainian president, and his courage is remarkable to witness.
It’s what his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, did in the aftermath of the revolution in 2014, leaving behind his palace filled with exotic cars and ostriches for the safety of Moscow. The enduring failure of Ukrainian democracy has been the gap between the code of behavior that applies to the elite and the one that the rest of the country must follow. There’s no airlift awaiting his fellow residents, so rather than accepting the perk of his position, he’s suffering in the same terror and deprivation that they are forced to endure. Most human beings would rather not have their enemies hang their corpse from a traffic light, the sort of historic antecedent that is hard to shake from the mind. After Germany invaded France, Charles de Gaulle made his way to London. Or to take a more recent example: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani boarded a helicopter out of Kabul the moment he heard a rumor that the Taliban had entered the city. But in life, as in the fictional version he created, Zelensky, slightly diminutive and gravelly-voiced, has been subjected to the most intense stress test of character. He created and starred in a comedy series, Servant of the People. His character, a high-school history teacher, is surreptitiously recorded by one of his students as he passionately rants against the tyranny of corruption in his nation.
We have withstood and successfully repelled enemy attacks,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in the video. “The fighting continues in many cities and ...
When Volodymyr Zelensky grew up in southeastern Ukraine, his Jewish family spoke Russian and his father once forbade him going abroad to study in Israel.
With Russian media presenting such a picture of his country, Zelensky recorded a message to Russians to refute the notion that Ukraine is the aggressor and that he is any kind of warmonger: “They told you I ordered an offensive on the Donbas, to shoot, to bomb, that there’s no question about it. Though he can be faulted for not carrying out political reforms quickly enough and for dragging his feet on hardening Ukraine’s long border with Russia over the last year, Haring said, Zelensky “has shown a stiff upper lip. He said this week that they remained in Ukraine, not joining the exodus of mainly women and children refugees seeking safety abroad. That “perfect” phone call, as Trump later called it, resulted in Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives on charges of using his office, and the threat of withholding $400 million in authorized military support for Ukraine, for personal political gain. WARSAW, Poland — When Volodymyr Zelensky was growing up in southeastern Ukraine, his Jewish family spoke Russian and his father once forbade the younger Zelensky from going abroad to study in Israel. Instead, Zelensky studied law at home. Like his TV character, Zelensky came to office in a landslide democratic election, defeating a billionaire businessman.
The brutal and wholly unjustified invasion of Ukraine has transfixed the world in horror, writes Jay Parini. And the heroic figure at the center of this war ...
His gifts for communication and his remarkable grasp of social media make him a formidable opponent for Putin, even though the army he commands, in sheer numbers and resources, pales beside Russia's. Join us on Twitter and FacebookOne can't, at this point, even begin to imagine the eventual outcome of this war. But sometimes history comes to the rescue of a politician, and the past week has transmogrified Zelensky from a rapidly dwindling presidential figure into a national hero on a massive scale. The character he played in the TV show was a reformer, and the show skewered the political classes in Ukraine as well as neighboring Russia, Belarus and Georgia. His fellow Ukrainians elected him to do in real life what he did on television -- sweep away corruption with a big broom. Zelensky posts video in the streets of Kyiv Zelensky posts video in the streets of Kyiv Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College. His most recent book is "Borges and Me," a memoir of his travels in the Highlands of Scotland in 1971 with Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine fabulist. Zelensky then parlayed his success into politics, running for office in 2019 on the back of a political party named after his show, "Servant of the People." Imagine a country where a television star could become president and emerge as a beacon of courage! In August 1991, Ukraine officially and proudly withdrew from the Soviet Union, but the transition to a full democracy has not been easy, as corruption has hobbled the government for decades.
'The fight,' says the Ukrainian president, speaking from Kyiv, 'is here' · Ukrainian service members are seen at the site of a firefight following a Russian raid ...
No urban center in Ukraine was reported on Saturday yet to have fallen to the Russian invasion force. Zelensky said in response: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation, who described Zelensky as upbeat. How do I stop her from treating me and our wealthy parents like an ATM?
When Mr Zelensky was growing up in south-eastern Ukraine, his Jewish family spoke Russian and his father once forbade the younger Zelensky from going abroad to ...
In light of this, Mr Zelensky recorded a message to Russians to refute the notion that Ukraine is the aggressor and that he is any kind of warmonger: “They told you I ordered an offensive on the Donbas, to shoot, to bomb, that there’s no question about it. What are we going to fight over, and with whom?” When doctors there saved him, he chose to go back to Russia despite certain risk. Volodymyr Zelensky has made an unlikely journey from being a TV satirist and comedian to the president of Ukraine – and now, a national hero, as his country faces invasion from Russia. When Mr Zelensky was growing up in south-eastern Ukraine, his Jewish family spoke Russian and his father once forbade the younger Zelensky from going abroad to study in Israel. Volodymyr Zelensky has made an unlikely journey from being a TV satirist and comedian to the president of Ukraine – and now, a national hero, as his country faces invasion from Russia.