The Rise of Zelenskyy
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meteoric rise to power has been packed with drama and action. His journey has taken him from a Russian-speaking, aspiring diplomat to a TV comedian and finally, one of the most recognisable politicians on the planet. Having once been firmly rooted in Russian culture, he is now the greatest symbol of defiance to a Russian invasion that has wreaked havoc in his country. But what caused this shift? How did controversy mire his early years in office? And what can we expect from him in the future? Joining us today is Steven Derix, a long-standing Russia and Ukraine reporter and author of Zelensky: A Biography of Ukraine’s War Leader, to guide us through the life and career of Ukraine's celebrated leader.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, buddy. Welcome to Dan Snow's History. We'll talk about President Zelenski at the moment. |
| 0:04.4 | Who is this guy? What's his history? How do we understand him? Well, obviously, |
| 0:07.8 | better look at his past. That's the whole point of this podcast. So Stephen Derrick's is a Dutch |
| 0:13.2 | journalist. He works at Dutch newspaper, NRC Handels Blat. And he was their correspondent for |
| 0:18.5 | Russia Ukraine and Belarus from 2014 to 2020. He's been there loads. He's hung out with the |
| 0:23.5 | people he's kicked the ties and knows what's going on. He's written a book called Zelenski, |
| 0:26.4 | a biography of Ukraine's war leader. And he points out lots of fascinating stuff about Zelenski. |
| 0:31.4 | For example, he couldn't speak Ukrainian when he decided to run for president. He's an interesting |
| 0:37.7 | guy. He also ran on the peace ticket. He said, I'm the guy that can make peace with Putin. |
| 0:43.3 | So you know what they say about politicians' pro-writers, folks? This really enriched the |
| 0:47.7 | way I think about Zelenski in Ukraine. So I hope you enjoyed. |
| 0:57.1 | So you were in Ukraine way back in what 2014 you must have seen. You visited many times. Just |
| 1:17.5 | before we start to talk about Zelenski, what changes did you see over the course of your |
| 1:21.1 | reporting career? Well, what I've seen is that the ongoing crisis and the ongoing war in |
| 1:25.9 | Ukraine has actually brought the country together. So the Ukraine that I saw in 2014, which was not |
| 1:31.3 | prepared for Russian invasion, the annexation of the Crimea is a totally different country from |
| 1:36.3 | the country we see today. And when I was in Ukraine towards the beginning of that period, the roads |
| 1:41.9 | were bad. There's still a lot of corruption. It was swinging between western leaning and Russian |
| 1:47.3 | leaning leaders. It felt like a very troubled, very divided country. Yeah, so I'm afraid to say |
| 1:52.4 | the roads are still very bad. In many ways, Oleg Ark still ruled the country, although less than |
| 1:58.0 | before the war. But the one thing that has really changed is that this division between the |
| 2:02.6 | eastern and the west has completely disappeared. Even people who live in the eastern who speak Russian |
... |
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