Volodymyr Zelensky: How is Ukraine's president faring?
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Ukrainians overwhelmingly voted to make a comedian president, Europeans wondered what the punchline would be. In an exclusive interview, Stephen Sackur speaks to Volodymyr Zelensky, the comic actor who played a president on TV before getting the job in real life. He has had 18 months to make good on his promise to end corruption and find a pathway to peace with Russia. How is he doing?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:05.0 | My guest today has melded fact and fiction into a scarcely credible storyline. |
| 0:11.9 | Volodymyr Zelensky became famous across Ukraine as the comic actor who starred in a hugely popular show, |
| 0:20.1 | Servant of the People, about an unassuming teacher |
| 0:23.3 | who accidentally became president. And then the twist. Zolensky, with zero political experience, |
| 0:30.9 | decided to run for the top job in real life. And of course, he won, humiliating the sitting |
| 0:37.2 | president, Petro Poroshenko in the 2019 |
| 0:40.3 | presidential election. Mr. Zelensky promised to end Ukraine's endemic corruption and cronyism, |
| 0:47.0 | and he promised he would find a way to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine by engaging with |
| 0:53.0 | Moscow and restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity. |
| 0:56.8 | He was fresh. He was different. He was popular. But that was 18 months ago. What about now? |
| 1:02.7 | Is the Zelensky bubble still floating? Or is it about to burst? Well, he's on a state visit to |
| 1:09.4 | London and he joins me now. President Volodymyr Zelensky, |
| 1:13.3 | welcome to hard talk. You came to power as the anti-politician. You promised Ukraine's people |
| 1:21.6 | that you would deliver fundamental change. Have you kept that promise? |
| 1:30.3 | I would say I'm keeping my promises because it's a continuous process. First of all, we have done a lot of things that many different politicians had promised. |
| 1:45.8 | We have adopted a law on the impeachment of the president, and when the president is wrong, |
| 1:50.6 | I believe it won't be me, but if society demands it and our people are against this or that |
| 1:56.0 | president, he can be removed from office without any bloodshed problems or strikes. |
| 2:01.4 | This is very important. |
| 2:03.9 | There are also economic reforms and a land reform that everyone talked about. |
| 2:08.6 | We didn't only talk about it, we passed it. |
... |
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