Against Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky plays the tightrope walker
Caught between Moscow and the West, the Ukrainian president, a former actor who became a warlord, impresses his foreign counterparts with his composure.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stands with his troops on the front line near the city of Donetsk held by pro-Russian separatists on February 17, 2022.
KEYSTONE
In the series “Servant of the people” broadcast between 2015 and 2019, a clumsy history teacher, Vasil Holoborodko, is propelled to the head of the Ukrainian state after a viral anti-oligarch diatribe filmed by his students. The teacher without political experience finds himself forced to fight against corruption and bitter political rivals. The trajectory of Volodymyr Zelensky is not so far from the professor he played on screen a few months before his election on April 21, 2019. Since then, the real Ukrainian president has had to manage crisis after crisis much like his character, but with one major difference.
