In the war room with Volodymyr Zelensky

Tired but still cracking jokes, Ukraine’s hunted president says “I’m not a hero”

BY OLIVER CARROLL-Mar 27th 2022

The white metal gates creak open, revealing spruce trees and sandbags. “Welcome to the fortress,” says a presidential aide. Squinting, you can see the snipers: left, right, up and down. The air-defence systems, huge chunks of metal, are easier to spot. When the gates close, a soldier picks up a red vertushka, a secure government phone from the Soviet era, and asks for orders. We’re moved towards a side entrance, then escorted inside through blacked-out corridors and stairways – up, down and deep into the body of the Ukrainian war machine.

It has taken nearly an hour for us to reach the gates of Volodymyr Zelensky’s compound, a journey that would normally last ten minutes. The cobblestone streets of Kyiv are largely free of traffic these days, but the city’s central arteries have been reconfigured to confuse the enemy. The route snakes its way to the grey Soviet monolith past anti-tank obstacles, past men with guns, and increasingly well fortified checkpoints. We change vehicles. The nervy state of readiness in Kyiv is reminiscent of February 2014, when the Russian government’s efforts to keep Ukraine in its grip led to “the revolution of dignity” and the deaths of more than 100 people. Now the capital is on a war footing once again.

Inside the presidential compound, we are asked to leave our phones, devices, electronics and pens at the door – anything that could be used to identify our exact location. As we are searched with mobile metal detectors, an office manager looks on anxiously from behind a large pile of toilet rolls. She is one of the few people still commuting every day: “It’s scary travelling in now, but what can you do?” Most other members of staff have been sleeping on site in camp beds since the start of war.

More fumbling along darkened corridors and, abruptly, we find ourselves in Ukraine’s situation room. With its white formica table, high-backed chairs and large screens, it could be a corporate meeting room, but for the words emblazoned on each side, yellow on blue: “Office of the President of Ukraine”. For the past four weeks, as Zelensky has posted, telegrammed and tweeted, this backdrop has become famous. A serious-looking soldier enters. “Uvaga!” he barks: “Attention!” Ten seconds later, the president bounces into the room, accompanied by a handful of men with machineguns. Zelensky seats himself at the head of the table, in front of a carefully positioned Ukrainian flag, and starts talking.

The evolution of Zelensky from comic actor and rookie politician to world statesman has taken just three years – the arc was yanked upwards in the past month. In the early days of his presidency in 2019, Zelensky was a pioneering postmodern leader who tried to be everything to everyone. He was elected not for his policies – he didn’t have many – but for his vague opposition to the corruption and ideologies of the political class. For three seasons he had played the part of a teacher-turned-president in a popular tv series, “Servant of the People”. But in the early days as the real president he sometimes seemed out of his depth; when the press asked him difficult questions, he seemed uncomfortable, even irritable.

“I didn’t expect it to be this hard. I’m not a hero”

Events have forged his presidency into something more substantial. When war broke out, he immediately ditched his dark suits and clean shave for green khaki and a short beard. He already had combat gear to hand for visiting troops at the front line – one set for winter, one for spring: “I had them, only not so many.” He is wearing the new role well. Though he’s tired, and fidgets endlessly, there’s a calmness beneath the swagger. Zelensky shakes hands respectfully with everyone (one person gets a hug) and leans in to make eye contact. He pulls up his own chair. He pours his own fizzy water into his own plastic cup.

He engages with the conversation, firing back quick, friendly, sometimes mischievous answers, and strokes his beard as he speaks. Asked what he needs most from the West he immediately responds: “Number one, aeroplanes,” a smile flickers across his eyes: “Number two, but it’s really number one, tanks.” It comes as a surprise when he occasionally breaks his flow. “What does a Ukrainian victory look like?” we ask him. He raises his eyebrows, winces and takes a full seven seconds before speaking – realising, it seems, that millions of people depend on his answer: “Victory is being able to save as many lives as possible.”

“I didn’t expect it to be this hard,” says Zelensky. “You can’t imagine what it means or how well you’ll do as president.” The Russian attack has pushed his leadership into the unknown. He leans back in his chair: “I’m not a hero”. That is the achievement of his people, he says.

“Something isn’t right when the president’s translator isn’t available to the president”

He repeatedly uses the word honesty. “You have to be honest, so that people believe you. No need to try. You need to be yourself.” This attempt to be authentic has generated adulation, even memes, as Zelensky has baited the Russians and inspired Ukrainians with social-media videos from the streets of Kyiv. “If I don’t go out even for three or four days, and only stay in my office, I won’t know what’s going on in the world,” he says. He doesn’t need to spell out the inference, but he does. Vladimir Putin has been on his own in his bunker “for more like two decades”.

Zelensky surrounds himself with a small assembly of journalists, lawyers, performers and self-help professionals, his war-time “pop-up government”, as Sergii Leshchenko, a former journalist, now a member of the presidential staff, labels it. The entourage – all also kitted out in military green – seem at ease with each other and their leader. But not everything is in place. There is a long delay in getting the presidential interpreter to the room. The message comes back: he is busy on a foreign call. “Something isn’t right when the president’s translator isn’t available to the president,” Zelensky jokes.

The president wonders aloud which language he should be using. “When you ask in Russian, I will answer you in Russian. When you ask in English, I will answer in Ukrainian.” His aides suggest he should be speaking only Ukrainian. The president agrees, but doesn’t always follow the rule, and at times speaks in accented English – which he speaks well, despite his apologies for forgetting words. (At one point he wags his finger at the translator: “That was not everything I said,” he laughs.)

“When you ask in Russian, I will answer you in Russian. When you ask in English, I will answer in Ukrainian”

It all comes across as a bit chaotic, and perhaps it is. And yet everyone seems to know what to do. They are getting on with the job, despite the constant threat of a bomb falling on them. They are doing their work without waiting for his sign-off. They are the power here. Zelensky, for his part, believes one man cannot and should not control everything. As the country looks for every way to defeat Russia on the battleground, that understanding – a belief in the power of individual people choosing to stand together as one – may turn out to be Ukraine’s saving grace.■

Oliver Carroll is a correspondent for The Economist in Ukraine. You can read the rest of our coverage of the war here