Oliver Callan: Zelenskiy is delivering the performance of a lifetime

When Time magazine comes down to selecting its most influential person of the year, it will have to choose between two men.

The destructive force of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, or the astonishing hope machine that is Volodymyr Zelenskiy. However performative Zelenskiy’s methods of inspiring his country might be, the results are wholly real. The Ukraine war could have gone as an invasion by a vastly superior military power often does; its government collapsing and fleeing along with hopeless civilians fighting among themselves.

Instead, a steely nation of Ukrainians, used to disappointment over their presidents, have unified, defended and maintained their pride amid dreadful grief. The difference has quite simply been the belting force of Zelenskiy’s personality.

Commentators tend to describe the Ukraine leader’s impressive wartime leadership as coming in spite of his comedic background. Indeed, many rush to dismiss those profiles that highlight a CV full of frivolities like dancing shows and voicing cartoon bears.

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Zelenskiy also has a degree in law, they tell us, and both his parents are smart people with serious science and engineering credentials. He wasn’t a comedian at all, they appear to say, there was a serious intellect hiding beneath the clown face all along and it has now appeared just when Ukraine needs it. If you think Zelenskiy’s amazing turn as an inspiring wartime leader is down to his law degree, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Zelenskiy’s hope formula is primarily his performance, one honed by years on stage and TV. The strengths of the man who has literally kept Ukraine in existence these past few weeks might owe more to glitter balls and punchlines than statecraft.

Traditional politicians are used to scripted, stilted speeches on autocues mostly before supportive crowds who know exactly when to applaud. Comedians have to win over their audiences with every new appearance, and keep them entertained through the vagaries of taste and acceptability.

The 44-year-old Zelenskiy has been perfecting his act since he was 17, and knowing exactly how to read a room and judge a mood is a priceless asset, whether you’re a comic, or an actor, or a president in a war.

He took the tools of his election, self-shot videos of quotidian musings, usually ad-libbed into neat accessible soundbites, and made them rallying calls to a nation to arm up and fight. Ever the stage artist, he carefully chose his costume. It’s not quite a military uniform since he never served, but the green T-shirt and khaki fleece exudes the easy appearance of an army commander who is in charge and staying close to his soldiers.

The Zelenskiy look is now so specific and recognisable, Lego nerds were able to recreate his figure in bricks, right down to his flecks of stubble. French president Emmanuel Macron has even preposterously copied the war-weary style, but from the plush comforts of the Élysée Palace. Everyone in the free world is so impressed by Zelenskiy, some want to be like him.

It’s the performance of a lifetime, and while there was rhetoric and some staging, Zelenskiy has something that cannot be written and produced; authenticity. When he told the world from his iPhone on the streets of Kyiv that he was unafraid and wasn’t going to hide, we could literally see that he had no fear and that he wasn’t hiding.

When he tells parliaments that Ukraine is suffering, his tired glistening eyes sell every true word. The steel really shows when interpreters break down as they translate his words, even as Zelenskiy talks on, unruffled. When he speaks of his people’s determination to stay and fight, he raises a clenched fist and departs the shot, as though he’s off to direct a war happening up the road from the next room, because he actually is.

There is no equal in modern history to this amazing, moving performance, and it doesn’t diminish its value and effect in calling it a performance. He is unscripted and his use of “we” doesn’t feel forced, as it usually does in a politician’s mouth. Comparisons to Winston Churchill encouraging Britons during the Blitz fall short. Churchill was a great wartime leader but one who read tightly scripted broadcasts and governed from a bunker full of brandy.

Zelenskiy faces extraordinary danger every hour he remains in office and his security team has already prevented several attempts on his life since the invasion began. While Macron’s dress-up is about re-election by the end of April, Zelenskiy’s goal is to stay alive that long so he can bring peace to Ukraine and ensure its survival.

It is immeasurable how much Zelenskiy’s fearless leadership by example has led directly to those tens of thousands of ordinary, untrained citizens who took up arms or made petrol bombs or stayed working in hospitals or kept the trains running as shells rained down. Before the war, Zelenskiy’s approval ratings were crashing, despite attempted reforms and campaigns against oligarchs. Voters felt he was out of his depth as the Russian troop numbers surged on their borders.

The days since invasion have broken some of Ukraine’s cities, but made its president. He has quite literally held the country together, not just as a citizenry, but as an idea, now recognised completely and permanently around the world. The tyrant Putin with vastly superior firepower moved to destroy Ukraine, but Zelenskiy’s defence has cemented its identity forever. Not bad going for a comedian, despite his law degree.

Oliver Callan is a writer and satirist