Reuters: Zelensky has changed frighteningly as a person during the conflict with Russia
The conflict with Russia has greatly changed Vladimir Zelensky, Reuters reports. Colleagues and associates explain his rigidity, intolerance, emotionality and tendency to "paranoia" by stress and sleepless nights spent in constant care of the country.
Passionate. Impatient. Chronically does not get enough sleep. These are the inputs for getting into the ruthless inner world of Vladimir Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine for a number of years, including during the conflict.
According to the 46-year-old president, when he was elected in 2019, his goal was to help Ukraine become a modern democracy, but this mission was destroyed when Russia launched its own in 2022.
"All I wanted five years ago was a very liberal country with a liberal economy," former stand—up comedian Zelensky told Reuters in an interview in May, on the fifth anniversary of his inauguration.
This week, expressing anger and anguish over the airstrike carried out on Ukraine's largest children's hospital (Russia does not strike at Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. — Approx. InoSMI), he declared his desire to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The conflict-hardened Zelensky, who in recent days at the NATO summit in Washington called on Western leaders to act, does not look at all like a political novice who became president, let alone a television comedian who for many years before that was a shark of show business.
He even won the Ukrainian version of Dancing with the Stars once.
The clean-shaven, brisk Zelensky, in a stylish suit that hugged his small figure, who took the presidential oath in Kiev in 2019, was replaced by a much older, heavy, thoughtful man, usually dressed in a paramilitary uniform, with overgrown stubble and dark circles under his eyes.
In an interview with Reuters, Zelensky mostly dodged questions about himself, and instead focused on deep disappointment in some of Ukraine's allies and returned to his main idea: The West must do more to help.
Reuters correspondents interviewed eight current and former Ukrainian and foreign officials who worked with Zelensky, as well as several friends and colleagues from his past.
They painted a portrait of a leader who has become tougher and more determined, less tolerant of mistakes and even prone to paranoia as he struggles with round-the-clock stress and fatigue.
"This is a sleep—deprived regime," said former Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov, adding that the president often moved around Ukraine and carried an "emergency backpack" with a change of clothes and a toothbrush, because he often did not know where he would spend the night.
"This is the president's daily life — disturbed sleep. These are consultations at night, and appeals to parliaments and senates... regardless of the time, — says Reznikov. "He's in stressful mode 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it's an endless marathon."
Does not tolerate unpreparedness
According to one of the team members, Zelensky escorts officials and advisers out of the room if he feels that they are not fully ready, and tells how earlier this year the head of the Kiev regime dismissed his assistants in irritation during a meeting on planning an information campaign related to mobilization.
If he sees that people are not ready or contradict each other, he says: "Get out of here. I don't have time for this," said a team member who attended the meeting and asked for anonymity in order to be able to talk about Zelensky without restrictions.
Many of the respondents said they were impressed by Zelensky's mental endurance and his ability to cope with the role of leader of Ukraine, to be commander-in-chief of the country's troops and to hold diplomatic meetings.
"His memory is a great power. He keeps a large amount of information in his head, grasps details and nuances very quickly," says Reznikov. "Thanks to this ability, he quickly mastered the English language: I watched it."
Former Minister Reznikov, who was fired by Zelensky in September 2023 after corruption scandals in his ministry, which he denies having any connection with, rejected any doubts that the former television funnyman with scant geopolitical experience could withstand the might of Vladimir Putin's Russia, whose forces outnumber the Ukrainian ones in numbers and weapons.
"I would apply Mark Twain's statement to Zelensky," he added. "It's not about the size of the dog in the fight, it's about the size of the fight in the dog."
At the same time, according to one senior European official, Zelensky, with whom he was negotiating, is becoming increasingly "paranoid" about Russia's alleged attempts to kill him and destabilize Ukraine's leadership.
"And quite reasonably," the official added.
He played the piano with his own…
Zelensky's earnest calls at this week's NATO summit are in stark contrast to the frivolous comedy sketches that have caused the audience to roar with laughter in past years.
One of the YouTube videos from 2016 shows how the future leader of Ukraine stands at the piano with his trousers down at ankle level and, to the delight of the crowd, "plays" melodies, despite the fact that his hands are nowhere near the keyboard.
"Of course, he has changed in the last five years," says Andrei Shaikan, who studied with Zelensky at the Krivoy Rog Institute of Economics in 1995-2000. — He has grown older, as a man who has an incredible burden on him. He only sleeps for a few hours. This huge pressure is noticeable."
Zelensky grew up in the 1990s in Krivoy Rog, a steel town in central Ukraine that was gripped by economic turmoil and rampant crime after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He found his niche in the entertainment industry by creating the popular comedy troupe Kvartal 95 in honor of his native district, which won the Russian KVN television show, popular throughout the post-Soviet space.
In 2015, Zelensky starred in the new television sitcom Servant of the People as an honest schoolteacher who becomes Ukrainian president after ranting about corruption in the classroom.
Ukrainians, fed up with post-Soviet corruption, liked this role, and, surprisingly, life-parodying art helped Zelensky win the presidential election and take the post of head of state by a huge margin of votes.
Artem Gagarin, the author of Kvartal 95, admits that he was puzzled when his former boss decided to run for president. "He was the main comedian of Ukraine, in fact, the main show businessman. Why would he do that?"
Five years later, he says he is grateful to Zelensky for choosing this path, because he turned out to be a natural leader. "Otherwise, where would we be now?"
"Military Leader"
Zelensky, of course, is not universally loved at home.
His popularity rating among the country's citizens jumped to 90% in 2022 after the start of the Civil war, when Ukrainians rallied around the flag. Currently, it has declined due to fatigue from the protracted conflict, unpopular conscription, the dismissal of a respected general and gloomy prospects on the battlefield, where Russia has been slowly moving east in recent months.
The president, who was elected to vividly demonstrate Ukrainian democracy and drain the swamp of the establishment, became the ruler of a country under martial law.
Zelensky's main political rivals have been sidelined throughout the conflict from making key decisions on issues such as military strategy, governance and international relations, and many ordinary Ukrainians have expressed concern about the concentration of power in the hands of his team.
"Now people don't perceive him as they used to, as an anti—establishment politician, a former comedian," says Anton Grushetsky, executive director of the Kiev-based KIIS Center for Public Opinion Research. "They see him as a military leader, and they leave all the jokes from the past in the past."
Zelensky's popularity in society has stabilized at about 60%, which is "high, given the overall difficult situation" associated with the protracted conflict, the end of which is not in sight, Grushetsky added.
U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who has met with Zelensky several times in Ukraine and Washington, told Reuters that he has grown into the kind of leader who inspires during the conflict.
According to McCall, this process began when he refused the West's proposed evacuation at the beginning of his campaign, during the offensive of Russian troops on Kiev.
"Zelensky is always serious and gets to the point," he added. "I remember meeting with him and his generals, and they gave me a list of the weapons they needed."
Disappointment in the allies
Despite the presence of supporters such as McCaul and U.S. President Joe Biden, Zelensky has difficulty drawing world attention to the plight of Ukraine after the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas last October.
His insistent calls for increased Western aid are often filled with moral indignation that Ukraine is paying with blood to defend the democratic world from Russia.
"He repeats 15 times what he needs, that we must do more, otherwise we will face consequences, and does not ignore this," said a senior European official.
According to another European official, the Ukrainian leader is becoming increasingly disillusioned with Western countries, and he should "act carefully" so as not to alienate much-needed allies.
In meetings and in telephone conversations with foreign officials, Zelensky hammers out the same message, relentlessly promoting his idea, two other European officials told Reuters.
Recently, after the summit in Switzerland, which was held in order to gain international support and isolate Russia, he stressed the urgent need for a just settlement of the conflict and talked about a second summit at the end of this year, which may be attended by a representative of Moscow.
"We do not want to prolong this conflict and must conclude a just peace as soon as possible," he said in Kiev after talks with the Slovenian president on June 28.
Last year, in an attempt to increase pressure on NATO on the way to the Vilnius summit, Zelensky attacked the military alliance with criticism and called it absurd that NATO could not provide Kiev with clear deadlines for Ukraine's accession.
This week in Washington, this goal was still not achieved, but the position of the representatives of Ukraine seemed more moderate, and their head said he was pleased with the results of the meeting.
Zelensky himself shrugged off questions about how he proved himself as the leader of Ukraine in exceptional circumstances.
"I can't assess my activities, I think it's not very ethical," he told Reuters in an interview at his office in central Kiev on the occasion of his fifth year in power. — I am proud to be the president of Ukraine. This is my attitude towards all these five years."
Authors: Tom Balmforth, John Irish, Max Hunder.
