It appears almost exclusively in a khaki T-shirt on a neutral background, a Ukrainian flag on the back. This is how he appeared by videoconference, Tuesday, March 8, in the Parliament of Westminster – an extremely rare intervention for a foreign head of state. The decor was similar, still by interposed screens, on March 1 facing the MEPs, gathered in Brussels in an extraordinary session. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, a former actor, changed in stature with the invasion of his country by Russian troops. He communicates all day long on social networks, for his population and with Western partners who support him massively. “He is a kind of new face of the West”, analysis for L’Express Valentyna Dymytrova, doctor in information and communication sciences.
Filmed outdoors, a first in ten days
Having become the true warlord of a territory to be “denazified”, according to Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky knows he is targeted by the Russian army. “According to the information we have, the enemy has designated me as target number 1. My family is target number 2,” he said himself on February 25.
On the second and third day of the invasion, however, he posted videos on his Telegram account where he appears in the streets of Kiev. In the first, tour at night, he is surrounded by his close team in front of the palace of the presidency. In the second, he is alone, by day, in front of the Maison aux Chimères. The Head of State distills each time his fierce will to defend his country and the pride he feels for his compatriots.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky filmed in his office in Kiev, March 7, 2022.
AFP PHOTO / UKRAINIAN PRESIDENCY PRESS OFFICE
These filmed messages are daily. But they have not been recorded from the outside for about ten days. He now appears standing behind a desk or sitting at a desk. A way of not informing the enemy of his exact location. One thing is certain: Volodymyr Zelensky is still in Kiev, the capital, which the Russian army is currently trying to encircle.
When the United States offered to evacuate him, he replied that “the fight is here. I need ammunition, not a driver”. At the start of the week, he filmed himself again in recognizable places. On Monday, he spoke, still on Telegram, from his office. It was night. “I’m not hiding, I’m not afraid of anyone,” he wrote. Tuesday, on Instagramhe appeared outside, in Kiev, in front of a low wall topped with sandbags.
“Work and Sleep”
If the image is symbolic, President Zelensky is nonetheless cautious. When he met a group of international journalists – searched beforehand – on March 3, an anonymous and bunkered room in the presidential palace was set up. He “wants to portray a head of state at work in his usual place, which obviously does not mean that he works or lives there permanently”, notes the reporter from World, present at the restricted press conference. A ten-minute embargo has been put in place so that Volodymyr Zelensky can leave the premises after the meeting. His close security then led him “along a dark corridor, where one advances by the light of flashlights”, describes The world. The presidential palace was for the occasion “plunged in the dark”, says a journalist from France info.
The life under invasion of the ex-comedian is just as secret. To CNN crews and Channel 4, with whom he spoke, he simply summed up his daily life as a warlord: “Work and sleep.” A lot for the first and little for the second, at the sight of his tired look during his interventions. He maintains frequent contact with his foreign, neighboring or more distant counterparts, on WhatsApp instant messaging for example. Less with his family: he said he had not seen his wife and two children for several days. Their location is not known.
Since the start of the war, Volodymyr Zelensky has been the target of at least one assassination attempt. A Chechen elite unit, sent for this mission, has been eliminated, announced on March 1, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. He specified that the Ukrainian authorities had been warned of this disastrous plan… by the FSB, the Russian intelligence service.