2022's Political Fairytale: Can Ukraine's War Hero Zelensky Trench a Path to Become a Modern Churchill?

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

This is possibly Churchill’s most famous speech, and it will be used in television and film programmes reflecting on the Prime Minister’s life for decades to come.

It was not a live address to the nation, but rather to the Commons, with only MPs and staff present to hear it amid the second World War. There is no doubt, however, that it will be remembered as one of the most powerful political orators of all time.

Years later, another embattled leader would echo the words: “Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender,” Zelensky told Congress, echoing one of Churchill’s most famous phrases and earning a standing ovation.

Zelenskyy was given a hero’s welcome in the United States as he stepped out of his war-ravaged country for the first time after the conflict with Russia began 300 days ago.

Zelensky, 44, met US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office and jointly addressed a press conference at the White House on Wednesday. He was given the rare distinction of addressing a joint session of the US Congress on a day packed with back-to-back meetings.

To say it has been an eventful year for Zelensky would be the understatement of the year. While the Russo-Ukraine conflict has been going on since 2014, most of the world was unprepared for what conspired in February this year.

According to reports, in the beginning of 2021, Russia established a significant military presence near its border with Ukraine, including from neighbouring Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned NATO’s expansion and has demanded that Ukraine be barred from ever joining the military alliance. He also advocated for irredentism and questioned Ukraine’s right to exist.

Russia officially recognised the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic as independent states on February 21, 2022. Three days later, during a televised broadcast, Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine, signalling the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The invasion was widely condemned internationally, prompting many countries to impose sanctions against Russia and increase existing sanctions. Despite fierce opposition, Russia abandoned an attempt to take Kyiv in early April 2022. Russia announced the annexation of several areas of southern and eastern Ukraine in late September, prompting widespread condemnation. Significant areas have recently been retaken by Ukrainian counteroffensives in the south and northeast.

Volodymyr Zelensky is perhaps the closest thing modern politics has to a mythical hero, wrote Gaby Hinsliff for the Guardian.

Ukraine’s valiant wartime president captivated the world with his haunting, straight-to-camera monologues delivered under fire. His story is a political fairytale about a comic actor who became a resistance leader.

Many wondered if Zelenskiy’s interruption of his own show on New Year’s Eve 2018 to announce his real-life presidential candidature directly to viewers was a joke. Even at the end of the campaign, there was “no such thing as Zelensky the politician”; just a comedian leading an essentially virtual movement with no formal members and little ideology beyond appealing to Ukrainians’ frustration with corruption, according to Serhii Rudenko, who recently wrote a biography on the leader.

However, as Rudenko points out, the idea of disrupting politics by forming a new party may have served a more serious purpose for Ihor Kolomoisky, the powerful oligarch who owns the TV station that aired Zelensky’s show. Kolomoisky’s lawyer became one of the candidate’s closest advisers, raising questions about who was truly in charge. However, the new president would eventually distance himself from his original backers, emerging from their shadow – at least according to Rudenko – as the man we see today.

Zelensky was elected president in 2019, defeating incumbent Petro Poroshenko by portraying himself as an anti-establishment outsider dedicated to eradicating corruption and improving relations with Moscow. His pitch was heavily influenced by his role on his TV show, in which he played an ordinary man thrust into the presidency to clean up the country. He even named his political party after the show.

Now, Zelensky is at the pinnacle of a sophisticated public relations campaign to rally global support for Ukraine, explains a report by the Wall Street Journal.

He carefully tailors his message for his specific audience, from hand-shot videos from the streets of Kyiv to his speeches to the United Nations and the United States Congress.

As he spoke by videolink to the British parliament, he invoked the 9/11 and Pearl Harbor attacks for American lawmakers and referred to Britain standing alone against Nazi Germany.

When addressing the Irish parliament, he alluded to the risk of famine in other parts of the world as a result of Ukraine’s massive agricultural exports being disrupted. He told the Grammys that the Russian war machine was silencing Ukraine’s cities, and he told The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London that global corporations had a critical role to play in isolating Russia and reviving Ukraine’s economy, the report said.

In Ukraine, his customary late-night social media addresses have become a rallying point for ordinary Ukrainians. In those, Zelensky sits at his desk, providing updates on how the conflict is progressing, applauding the sacrifices of the Ukrainian armed forces and warning of the upcoming tests.

Zelensky initially focused much of his energy on projecting a sense of calm as Russian forces steadily built up along Ukraine’s borders, eventually totaling up to 190,000 troops. He claimed that US warnings of an impending invasion were exaggerated and were harming Ukraine’s economy.

But, after the first Russian strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on February 24, he shifted his focus to bolstering Ukraine’s defences and securing as much Western assistance as he could. With Russian propaganda claiming he had already fled the country, he made a hand-held video of himself out on the street in front of the presidential palace in Kyiv to encourage Ukrainians to defend their country.

On Telegram and Facebook, it received millions of views. Suits and ties were replaced by military sweatshirts. Zelensky met with Western leaders frequently, urging them to increase sanctions against Moscow in the hope of halting Russia’s advance. According to several diplomats, as he pleaded with European leaders in a video call to take tougher action, he warned them that this might be the last time they saw him alive, the report by Wall Street Journal explained.

Since then, Zelensky has been on a virtual tour of capitals, rallying support for Ukraine. In addition to the United Nations and the United States Congress, he has addressed audiences in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Switzerland, among others, with plans for additional outreach to seek assistance and maintain international pressure on Russia. So far, he has been unable to persuade the West to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

He also wants Western countries to do more to tighten sanctions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday addressed the US Congress as a wartime leader appealing for American support, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill did more than 80 years before.

Zelensky’s visit to Washington — much like Churchill’s in December 1941 — came with his country under relentless attack and international aid essential to its ability to fight on.

“Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender,” Zelensky told Congress, echoing one of Churchill’s most famous phrases and earning a standing ovation.

Zelensky earlier this year channeled Churchill in a video address to Britain’s House of Commons, pledging to “fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton was among US politicians drawing parallels to the former British premier, saying Zelensky was leading his country with “Churchillian courage and resolve.”

“Our message now must be the same from all quarters as it was then: We are with you,” she said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he had told Zelensky “that where Winston Churchill stood generations ago, so too does he tonight not just as a president but as an ambassador for freedom itself.”

The comparison between Churchill’s and Zelensky’s trips to the United States has its limits, however, including in the length of the Ukrainian leader’s stay.

Churchill spent three weeks in Washington at the invitation of president Franklin Roosevelt — a lengthy visit that historians say wore on the nerves of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who did not enjoy the two men’s late night cigar and brandy-fueled conversations.

Zelensky’s trip lasted only a few hours, and included a meeting in the Oval Office, a joint press conference with President Joe Biden, and the speech to Congress.

Churchill ventured across the Atlantic by ship despite the threat of submarines, while Zelensky made the journey via aircraft.

When Churchill arrived in the United States, he found a country shaken by the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor and drawn into an international conflict it had sought to avoid.

While Biden is willing to be compared to Roosevelt for his ambitious economic reforms, he does not want to be drawn into a third world war, making clear that he will not send troops to Ukraine, nor even certain types of weapons, in a bid to avoid escalation.

The war will continue in 2023, with Ukraine holding a slight advantage over Russia’s greatly degraded military, owing primarily to extensive Western military aid. The following months of winter and spring 2023 are likely to be decisive for the war’s overall outcome, a report by the Kyiv Independent states.

Ukraine will press on with its offensive operations to retake the occupied territory, the report states, alleging that in order to save an ‘increasingly critical situation’, the Kremlin is likely planning one more all-out attack on Ukraine, such as a second massive rush on Kyiv in early 2023.

With inputs from AFP

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