Volodymyr Zelenskiy: ‘My White House invitation? I was told it’s being prepared’

Servant Of The People, a sharp-edged comedy, first aired in 2015. Zelenskiy stars as high-school teacher Vasyl Holoborodko, whose classroom tirade against corruption is filmed by a pupil and posted online, propelling him to the presidency after the post goes viral. Think Yes Minister crossed with House Of Cards, transposed on to the grimly cynical world of post-Soviet politics. The popularity of the show prompted a question, backed up by favourable polling numbers: what if Zelenskiy ran for office in real life? In the final moments of 2018, on his new year television show, he announced that he would.

He ran a ludicrous, postmodern campaign, the centrepiece of which was a nationwide comedy tour that included video clips of his on-screen president. Mainly, he just wanted to make the audience laugh. One Ukrainians-on-holiday sketch poked fun at a tourist who spends his vacation watching movies on a bus. “But where did you stop?” he is asked. “Somewhere around Terminator 2,” comes the response.

Zelenskiy was up against the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire chocolate magnate who had won the presidency a few months after the Maidan revolution. While Poroshenko had brought some reform, he had failed to deliver on his key promise to end corruption. Lagging in the polls, he was flummoxed by Zelenskiy’s insurgent campaign, and tried to paint his opponent as a man who would appease Putin over the war. Meanwhile Zelenskiy largely avoided debate, running a populist campaign – the people against the old elites – but without the usual populist tactic of sowing anger and division. Instead, he made vague talk of unification, fighting corruption and ending the war, with few specifics.

Now that Zelenskiy is in charge, does he regret mocking politicians so mercilessly on his TV show? Zelenskiy smiles. "I understood that, without experienced people it’s impossible to run a country. But these people are at middle level. They are the bureaucrats who know where to scurry to, what to do, whom to bring the papers to". Zelenskiy claimed to us that because he and his circle are demonstrably not on the take, it has become more difficult for anyone else to take a bribe. "The president can’t change the country on his own. But what can he do? He can give an example".