Zelensky: The Selling of a President
How a TV comedian from Europe’s poorest country became a wannabe Winston Churchill performing on the world stage.
Volodymyr Zelensky will no doubt go down in history as a tragic figure. Plucked from the relative obscurity of Ukrainian television, he became a global phenomenon, a diminutive David who stood up to the diabolical Goliath of Vladimir Putin, reflecting the righteous struggle of his country Ukraine as it took on the brutish and evil Russian Empire.
Very few people in the West had even heard of Zelensky prior to the launch of Russia’s “Special Military Operation” in 2022. Indeed, it is safe to say that 9 out of 10 Americans probably could not even have found Ukraine on a map prior to the start of the conflict. In fact, the only thing most Americans knew about Ukraine was that it had something to do with the impeachment of Donald Trump.
That all changed on February 24 of last year. Suddenly, western audiences were treated to scenes reminiscent of Schindler’s List (but in colour): families crammed onto train platforms, wailing children, frightened mothers — families struggling desperately to leave the war zone.
War, it seemed, had returned to Europe, and the conflict in Ukraine swept into the western consciousness in a cyclone of trauma-laden images and breathlessly emotional dispatches that took us all back to the darkest days of the holocaust and WWII.
Instantly, the western propaganda machine sprung into action. Decades of systemic and persistent Russophobia were leveraged to quickly create a wartime narrative: Putin was the new Hitler, Russia was the new Nazi Germany, and Ukraine was the brave Britain, holding the line against the aggressor, even as bombs rained down on its cities.
The only thing needed to complete the narrative was a modern-day Churchill.
The rise of a “global hero”
For western elites, the hero of the new war was obvious: Volodymyr Zelensky was a seasoned actor and producer, a man who had his own TV production studio and who starred in his own hit TV series.
This meant he knew how to appear on camera; he could take direction; learn and deliver his lines convincingly; develop an empathetic character — and stay in character for as long as needed.
In short, like Forrest Gump and so many other of Hollywood’s “accidental heroes”, Volodymyr Zelensky was the perfect man for the moment.
The making of a TV president
Firstly, it should be noted that Zelensky “came out of nowhere.”
Politico observed that “Ukraine’s nearly four-month long election campaign did little to provide answers as to who Zelensky is and what he truly thinks”.
“Zelensky avoided human contact with his electorate. He addressed voters through short YouTube and Instagram posts and appearances on TV. Instead of preparing for the presidency and holding substantive public meetings, he traveled with his comedy troupe and performed in variety shows”.
Zelensky thus entered office as a true cipher, a tabula rasa. No one knew what he would do.
At least, it seemed that way.
Zelensky‘s “180"
As I describe in my article, “Zelensky’s Hitlerian heel turn”, Zelensky did an “about face” when it came to the issue of war and peace.
During his campaign, Zelensky broadcast a vague promise of “peace” and “unity”, often focused on the Donbas and the ethnic divisions playing out there in violence. He promised to negotiate with Putin and “bring peace to the Donbas”.
In fact, he ran a hard-hitting campaign video that preached unity. In the advert, Zelensky says:
“They divided us … but we are all Ukrainians … In the north, south, east, west and center … Ukrainian and Russian speakers … We are different, but so similar. We are uniting to move forward.”
But in his first press conference, he declared war in the Donbas.
Zelensky in War
In January 2022, Zelensky ordered another 120,000 Ukrainian troops to mass along the Donbas “contact line”. At this time, the OSCE monitoring team also noted a 500% increase in the shelling of rebel areas.
This was an obvious preparation for an invasion of the DPR and LPR — an act that dared the Russians to make a move.
Vladimir Putin had to act. And he did.
A few weeks later, Russian troops invaded Ukraine in what Putin called a “Special Military Operation” designed to achieve specific political changes in Ukraine.
“ I need ammunition, not a ride”
As a Russian column lumbered toward Kiev, the Western propaganda machine immediately set about to portray Zelensky as the defiant leader standing up to aggression.
An AP article kicked off the Zelensky mystique on February 26, 2022:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was asked to evacuate Kyiv at the behest of the U.S. government but turned down the offer. 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.
Of course, Zelensky never said any such thing.
The quote was later debunked as “fake news” and no corroborating witnesses could be found — either among the press or among the Ukrainian government. Zelensky himself, who could have confirmed the quote, refused to say anything about it.
Some weeks later, the Washington Post Fact Checker found that:
Administration officials expressed confusion about the claim to The Fact Checker — they deny Zelensky was asked to leave Kyiv by the U.S. government — and said they do not know what call the AP is citing.
In October, The New Yorker belatedly reported:
Two days into the invasion, the Associated Press reported that Zelensky had rejected a U.S. offer to evacuate him from Kyiv, saying, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” A senior U.S. official said, “To the best of my knowledge, that never happened.”
The official added, “But hats off to Zelensky and the people around him. It was a great line.”
A great line indeed. But that was just the beginning.
The peace plan — and a guarantee of safety
Almost immediately, Zelensky responded in the way that Putin had hoped — he agreed to peace negotiations with Russia. In late February the talks started with three meetings in Belorussia. They then went on to Istanbul for the final phase.
As a precondition to the talks, however, Zelensky had asked assurances that Putin would not have him killed. Putin assured Zelensky that he had no intention of killing him, that he wanted to negotiate peace with him.
Those assurances were to play a big role in Zelensky’s subsequent “fearless” behaviour.
Unfortunately, the peace plan itself did not escape death. Ukrayinska Pravda (Ukrainian Pravda), reported that Johnson arrived suddenly, “without warning” on April 9, swooping down like some perverse deus ex machina to kill the infant peace deal in its crib.
A close associate of Zelensky described Johnson’s meeting with the Ukrainian President as follows:
“Johnson brought two simple messages to Kyiv: Putin is a war criminal, he should be suppressed, not negotiated with. And secondly, if you are ready to sign any agreements on guarantees with him, then we are not”.
And so Zelensky tossed away the chance at resolving the conflict almost as soon as it started.
A modern-day Churchill?
In return for trashing his peace agreement with Putin, Johnson had promised Zelensky unlimited and “unwavering” support from the UK and the West. In the remarks Johnson delivered during his visit to Kiev, the UK PM clearly sought to portray the Ukrainian President in Churchillian — if not Arthurian — terms:
“It is because of President Zelenskyy’s resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people that Putin’s monstrous aims are being thwarted”, Johnson declared.
Britain falls in love
The British fell in love with Zelensky. When he spoke to the House of Commons, he invoked Churchill directly:
“We will fight until the end, at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost … We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”
He even cited Shakespeare to describe the plight of his country under Russian invasion.
“The question for us now is to be or not to be,” he said, according to a translation of his speech, which was delivered in Ukrainian and broadcast live from Kyiv. “Oh no, this Shakespearean question. For 13 days this question could have been asked but now I can give you a definitive answer. It’s definitely yes, to be”.
Boris Johnson praised Zelensky for staying in Kyiv just as Mr Churchill had stayed in London during the Blitz in 1940.
“As the Russians launched their lightning assault on Kyiv, you knew that you were at the top of their target list, and you knew that squads of killers were hunting for you”, Johnson recounted breathlessly.
Indeed, this story of “Russian hitmen” parachuting into Kiev to assassinate Zelensky was 100% fabrication. Putin never had any intention of killing Zelensky, and Zelensky knew this.
Putin’s promise to spare Zelensky
Naftali Bennet, former Israeli Prime Minister, served as a mediator in the peace talks between Putin and Zelensky. In the early hours of the conflict, he sought to reassure the Ukrainian President that Putin would not have him killed.
Having secured a solemn promise from Putin that Zelensky would not be harmed, Bennett called the Ukrainian President with the good news.
“I call Zelensky and say, ‘I came out of a meeting, he’s not going to kill you’”, Bennet recounts.
Zelensky then asks, “are you sure?”
“I replied, 100%, he won’t kill you”, Bennet says.
Two hours later, according to Bennet, Zelensky filmed himself at his desk saying, “I’m not hiding. And I’m not afraid of anyone.”
Yes, the truth was that Zelensky knew all along that he would not be harmed — he could afford to remain in Kiev, go to the front line, appear fearless and undaunted — all the while knowing that his safety was guaranteed.
But that was the truth. The fiction was much more interesting, much more heroic, much more … Churchillian.
By July 2022, it was time to formalise the whole “Zelensky as Churchill” meme and turn it into official policy.
Boris Johnson organised a virtual ceremony at 10 Downing Street to convey upon Zelensky the Sir Winston Churchill Leadership Award of the International Churchill Society.
During the virtual ceremony, Johnson gushed praise for Zelensky:
“Your defiance, your dignity, your unfailing good humour has moved millions, and as you stand against barbarism, you’ve become a symbol of the heroism of the Ukrainian people.
“And like Churchill you’ve understood that you are not yourself the lion, the Ukrainian people are the lion, but you have been called upon to give the roar, the roar of freedom against tyranny, good against evil, of light against darkness.
Zelensky woos Washington
Boris Johnson wasn’t the only one to compare Zelensky to Churchill. Nancy Pelosi also did so.
After Zelensky’s speech at a joint session in Congress, Nancy Pelosi compared the two “war-time leaders”, saying:
“That was one of the finest speeches I’ve ever heard in the Congress. It was historic in that he and Churchill are the only two war-time presidents who have come here to talk, asking our help and thanking us for our anticipated help to stop the tyranny in Europe”.
“One of the finest speeches I’ve ever heard in Congress”-??? Seriously?
Zelensky was not modest in his speech, certainly. Nor was he subtle in his depiction of Russia as the new Nazi Germany:
“They threw everything against us, similar to the other tyranny, which is in the Battle of the Bulge. Threw everything it had against the free world, just like the brave American soldiers which held their lines and fought back Hitler’s forces during the Christmas of 1944. Brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing the same to Putin’s forces this Christmas”.
Zelensky’s speaking tour
Zelensky used video conferencing platforms — made popular during the COVID pandemic — to address parliaments worldwide.
Admitting that on the battlefield, “Ukraine’s fortunes have been mixed”, The Guardian nonetheless gave credit where it was due:
On the information front, however, Ukraine has offered a masterclass in message. Zelensky’s speeches to his people, and his addresses to foreign parliaments around the world, have galvanised international support and shored up morale at home.
Speechwriters from the West
In the West, it was widely acknowledged that Zelensky was getting help writing his speeches. The local references were too pithy, the nationally-oriented metaphors and historical anecdotes too sophisticated to have been cooked up by one person — or perhaps even one team.
While many in the west credited Zelensky’s talented team of TV writers with crafting his towering addresses, the real genius may have lied in Washington, DC — in the hallowed writers’ rooms of firms of government-linked PR firms like Hill & Knowlton and SDK Knickerbocker (the Biden family’s favourite propagandists).
But there are others in Zelensky’s orbit who have been placed there by the US forces that have sought to shape the destiny of Ukraine for decades.
Who is Serhiy Leshchenko?
One such person is Serhiy Leshchenko. He is often described as a “journalist” and “former member of Ukraine’ parliament” who is now “advising Zelensky. He is often quoted in articles about the Ukrainian President, and seems to keep popping up generally.
Leshchenko first appeared on many Americans’ radar in 2016 when he exposed the infamous “black ledger” that implicated Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in a corruption case in Kiev. His exposé would later be reflected in the Mueller Report.
But Leshchenko’s activities as a political operative for the neoliberal elites in DC started long before that. In 2012 he went to London to study under a “fellowship” of the John Smith Trust, a supposed NGO with deep ties to the UK government, and claims to be dedicated to “issues of governance, social justice and the rule of law”.
Then he hopped the Atlantic, and in 2013–2014 Leshchenko undertook an internship at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington D.C., a noted CIA cutout organisation that also claims to “support democracy”. In 2013 he took part in the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship at Stanford University in the United States, studying “Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law”.
According to his bio, Leshchenko “first rose to political prominence during Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution”. He then became a member of the Ukrainian parliament from 2014 until 2019, when he left to start “advising” Zelensky.
So, a talented journalist, indoctrinated and schooled by Western intelligence (MI6 and then CIA), has been by Zelensky’s side from the start, and continues to exercise power in the background, a sort of éminence grise whose job is to manage the Ukrainian leader and make sure he is doing what the West wants. He was also a highly prominent “point man” for Zelensky in helping navigate the tidal forces of US politics during the 2020 election.
Interestingly, articles at that time — as well as his Wikipedia page — all make the same caveat today, downplaying Leshchenko’s role in the Ukrainian government, saying that he “has since been distanced by the administration and Zelensky himself”.
Methinks the Ukrainians doth protest too much. Leshchenko is clearly still in the mix, despite his assertions to the contrary. This Ukrainian article from May 2023 still describes Leshchenko as a “presidential adviser”.
Let’ face it — Leshchenko is a valuable asset who will stick nby Zelensky until the end — or until Washington gets sick of him.
Which may not be long now.
2022: A rock star is born
In addition to making politicians swoon, Volodymyr Zelensky was given the star treatment by all the Western Elites. In July 2022, just 150 days after the Russians entered his country, Zelensky and his wife Olena posed for the US edition of Vogue magazine in a series of shots taken by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Not everyone liked the idea.
In March 2022, just days after the Russian incursion, Zelensky was profiled in a gushing paean in CNN which asserted that “Volodymyr Zelensky’s acting career prepared him for the world stage”.
During the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Zelensky received recognition from actors Michael Keaton and Brian Cox as they accepted their trophies.
“It makes sense that Hollywood has rallied around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky”, CNN explains. “After all, he’s one of their own.”
Zelensky even lobbied to attend the Oscars in 2022:
“In general, Zelensky is really following the news from Hollywood and looking for opportunities for support,” Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to the president’s chief of staff, said in an interview.
Alas, he was not invited.
Despite the Oscar snub, Zelensky was celebrated like no other leader — ever. He has met movie stars, rock stars, luminaries of all types from all around the world. As The Hill observed in August 2022:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has relied on a steady stream of visiting Hollywood stars to keep the world’s focus on his country’s war with Russia, now nearly six months in.
Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn and Liev Schreiber have all made trips to the war-torn country following Russia’s unprovoked offensive.
Sean Penn, who had been filming a documentary in Ukraine when the war broke out, had actually called for a boycott of the Oscars if Zelensky was not permitted to appear by video. Penn vowed to smelt his own awards if the academy snubbed the Ukrainian leader.
But then he found an even better solution:
Sean Penn gave Zelensky one of his two Oscars, telling the president, “When you win, bring it back to Malibu.”
I guess Sean will have to be happy with one Oscar.
How did we get here?
The story of Volodymyr Zelensky is a ridiculous, Hollywood-style fairy tale. When you stop to think about it, the very idea of Zelensky’s rise is so improbable as to be utterly absurd.
First, a comic actor becomes president of a country solely on a “fluff” campaign comprised of vague platitudes, driven by the very best PR in the world.
Next, that comic actor takes on the role of Winston Churchill during the Battle of Britain, only he is feted and worshipped far more than that old English bulldog ever was.
And yet, this all seems so familiar. Why is that?
It’s because we have seen it all before.
Calling Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson is a famous Hollywood producer and director. He is perhaps best known, however, for his movies in which political satire is foregrounded.
I believe that the entire saga of Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukraine War can be framed in two of Barry Levinson’s films.
Zelensky as “Man of the Year”
By any stretch of the imagination, Volodymyr Zelensky is an improbable leader, having risen from a comic actor who criticised and lampooned his government to winning his country’s highest office with an incredible 70% of the vote.
But it is a story that we accepted, because it was a story that already existed in our collective memory.
I am, of course, referring to Barry Levinson’s classic political comedy, Man of the Year.
In the film, Robin Williams plays Tom Dobbs, a popular TV comedian known for his political satire and critique of the government, who one day decides to run for President. And then, to everyone’s surprise, he wins by a large margin.
Sound familiar?
I have often compared Volodymyr Zelensky to Robin Williams. Their massive talent ranges, high energy, comic timing, as well as their (in both cases alleged) predilection for cocaine use, makes them similar in my mind.
It was therefore my natural and immediate reaction upon witnessing Zelensky’s meteoric rise in 2019 to think, “hold on, I’ve seen this before”. I had to search online before I found Levinson’s 2006 film, Man of the Year, and when I did, the penny, as they say, dropped.
This whole Zelensky business all had to be some sort of US/Hollywood plan, I thought. The parallels were just too overwhelming. If indeed Zelensky was some sort of agent for Western intelligence services, then certainly there had been a screening of the Levinson film in the bowels of the CIA or MI6 at some point, with a shadowy figure pointing to the the projected image of Robin Williams and screaming, “there, THAT’s what I want! Finds me a Tom Dobbs in Ukraine!”
In fact, the entire “Servant of the People” story, from its launch as a TV sitcom in 2015, to the formation of the “Servant of the People” political party two years later (2017), to the election of Zelensky two years after that (2019), has always seemed too coincidental, too improbable, and yet also too well planned, to have simply occurred by random chance.
I will no get into the whole “backstory” of Zelensky’s ties to Western intelligence. That subject has already been thoroughly presented by the famous Scott Ritter in his documentary, “Agent Zelensky”.
But if Zelensky’s being elected was a master class in covert action, then the planning and execution of the Ukraine War, and the transformation of Zelensky from a cute comic actor to a Churchillian figure of overwhelming resolve in the face of war, is truly a wonder to behold.
How Zelensky “Wags the Dog”
It is by now obvious to anyone with a working brain that the conflict in Ukraine is the most stage-managed, propaganda-driven, media-manipulated “project” that the world has ever seen.
Yes, the Western media has transformed Zelensky from a diminutive comedian in Europe’s poorest nation to a towering giant dominating the world stage, but that is just part of it. The war itself has been a media-manufactured fiction from the very beginning.
Even now, Western audiences are being convinced that Ukraine is winning, that the eastern provinces are being reconquered, that Crimea will be Ukrainian once again, that Russia is on the verge of collapse and Putin will be overthrown “any day now”.
How can this be?
Again, we find a precedent in Hollywood, in Barry Levinson’s 1997 masterpiece, Wag the Dog. The film centres on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war in Albania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal.
But the book upon which the film is based, Larry Beinhart’s American Hero, was centred around an ACTUAL war that is created in order to achieve political ends.
Larry Beinhart said he got his inspiration for the story from the Gulf War.
“I was watching the Gulf War on television and I basically made a joke: “This is a made-for-TV movie.” And I did not get the laughs I expected. So, I felt I needed to expand on it. I don’t think it was manufactured, but I do think that the Gulf War and all its elements were very consciously presented as World War II 2: The Video”.Everybody got cast in certain roles.
In American Hero, the war that is 100% manipulated for audience consumption. Sort of like what was done in the first Gulf War, but on steroids:
I sat down, I said, “If I wanted to make a satirical, exaggerated version of it, I’d get a pretend director like George Lucas or Steven Spielberg. What would that have been like?” And that’s what the book is.
In any case, Wag the Dog shows how the message can be prepared, promoted and disseminated throughout the media ecosystem. There are montages of news anchors all mouthing the exact same lines — just like it was ubiquitous in framing of the Ukraine War as “totally unprovoked”.
An updated “wagging” for Ukraine
In December 2022, ten months after the start of the Ukraine War, Vanity Fair did a long form interview with the cast and producers of Wag the Dog. [That timing itself is enough to tell me that someone at Vanity Fair was paying attention].
In the article, Dustin Hoffman, who received an Oscar nomination for his performance as an eccentric Hollywood producer, said: “I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a more prescient film. It’s kind of crazy”.
Jane Rosenthal, the Producer of the film, explained how the 1997 film was still relevant for the Ukraine War:
“Certainly, talking about it in 2022 — we had the same kind of skepticism then, but just so much has come true that it’s not to even be believed. You just sort of wonder sometimes, Is satire dead? Would you ever be able to do a political satire again?”
Indeed, in considering Barry Levinson’s works, we should question whether it is even possible to do political satire today.
When we consider the “story arc” of Volodymyr Zelensky, it seems that satire has become a blueprint for a manufactured “reality”.
#End.
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Thank you for this carefully researched piece. We also find it censorable that a TV comedian from Europe's poorest country bdecame an overnight billionaire. I have read of his Miami mansion, and the Pandora Papers uncovered close to a billion stashed overseas (I recall): https://www.occrp.org/en/the-pandora-papers/pandora-papers-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-ukrainian-president-and-his-inner-circle
Terrific article! The two Barry Levinson films were actually the West's plan all along. I knew that feeling of deja Vu I had was real. Thank you for presenting the facts so well and in a shareable manner.