In the last 72 hours, we’ve got to know and love Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. He has been winning hearts and support from global citizen even as his country is in the midst of a war, declared by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

On background, #GayNrd’s primer on Zelenskyy, or five moments that cemented him as the world’s new  zaddy:

1. When he challenged world leaders, in particular NATO’s, to come to his aid.
2. When he turned down an opportunity to get air lifted out of Ukraine and responded:

“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

3. When he stood side by side during a long night of bombing by the Russians with his boys.

4. When he got off the phone with France’s president Emmanuel Macron and let us know that: “Weapons and equipment from our partners are on the way to Ukraine. The anti-war coalition is working!”

5.

Here are 10 facts about him:

Volodymyr Zelensky is a Russian-speaking Jewish who was well-known for his comedy TV show.

Volodymyr Zelensky is married to Olena Zelenska since 2003. He has a son and a daughter.

The Ukrainian president earned a law degree from the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics, but did not go on to work in the legal field.

His grandfather, Semyon (Simon) Ivanovych Zelenskyy, served in the Red Army (in the 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division) during World War II; Semyon’s father and three brothers were killed in the Holocaust

Zelensky is an accidental president and in the 2019 election, he was the most unlikely candidate. But after he announced his entry into the fray, Zelensky was racing ahead in the opinion poll.

Before his entry into politics, Zelensky was an actor, a comedian. He also had a production company. His famous TV show Servant of the People featured Zelensky where he played the role of a school teacher who becomes Ukraine’s president after his rant goes viral.

Zelensky won the 2019 elections with 73% of the vote.

In his presidential campaign, Zelensky had promised to end the conflict with Russia.

Volodymyr Zelensky has been accused of corruption and was named in Pandora Papers. He and his production company have been linked to offshore shell companies.

–When Zelensky became the president, many called him a Ukrainian Donald Trump because of both of their link to the entertainment industry.

He may sound like Baron Zemo but he acts like Captain America.

Below his video from Friday night in the bunker.

The Atlantic:

History has found the Ukrainian president, and his courage is remarkable to witness.

Entertainers who enter politics are rightly treated with suspicion, because they are experts at the most dangerous part of the job, the manipulation of mass emotion. And in Ukraine, any outsider who rises to power engenders even greater suspicion because the assumption is that they must be doing the bidding of some shadowy force or other. As Zelensky has stumbled through his actual career in politics, those doubts have dogged him. It sometimes seemed as if he governed as an amateur doing his middling best, someone simply playing the part.

Anna Moneymaker / Getty

But in life, as in the fictional version he created, Zelensky, slightly diminutive and gravelly-voiced, has been subjected to the most intense stress test of character. In the course of the past terrible week, he revealed himself.

Yesterday, Zelensky told a videoconference of European leaders that they would likely not ever see him again. The whole world can see that his execution is very likely imminent. What reason does he have to doubt that Vladimir Putin will order his murder, as the Russian leader has done with so many of his bravest critics and enemies? Zelensky’s fate is so clear that Washington offered to extricate him from Kyiv, so that he could form a government in exile. But Zelensky swatted away the promise of safety. He reportedly preferred that Washington deliver him more arms for his resistance: “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”

When Zelensky rejected Washington’s offer of exile, he wasn’t making an obvious decision. After Germany invaded France, Charles de Gaulle made his way to London. Or to take a more recent example: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani boarded a helicopter out of Kabul the moment he heard a rumor that the Taliban had entered the city. And, really, who could blame them? Most human beings would rather not have their enemies hang their corpse from a traffic light, the sort of historic antecedent that is hard to shake from the mind.

In Ukraine, the decision for a leader to flee would be the expected choice. It’s what his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, did in the aftermath of the revolution in 2014, leaving behind his palace filled with exotic cars and ostriches for the safety of Moscow. The enduring failure of Ukrainian democracy has been the gap between the code of behavior that applies to the elite and the one that the rest of the country must follow. It’s been the elites who profit off the state, who stash their ill-gotten fortunes in French villas and Cypriot bank accounts, while their compatriots have stagnated. By staying put, Zelensky has erased this gap. There’s no airlift awaiting his fellow residents, so rather than accepting the perk of his position, he’s suffering in the same terror and deprivation that they are forced to endure.

A week ago it wasn’t at all obvious that the world would rally to Ukraine’s cause. Nor was it clear that the Ukrainian people would mount a collective resistance to the invasion of their country. There are many reasons why the tide has turned like it has, of course. But it is hard to think of another recent instance in which one human being has defied the collective expectations for his behavior and provided such an inspiring moment of service to the people, clarifying the terms of the conflict through his example.

Last night, Zelensky posted a video of himself standing on the street, speaking into the humble recording device of the smartphone, stubble crusting his face, surrounded by the leadership of the nation, stripped bare of all the trappings of office. “We are still here,” he told the nation. I pray that will be the case tomorrow.

 

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NBC News (1:11am 27Feb2022):

The fighting continued in Kyiv and across Ukraine on Saturday into Sunday, with the Russian assault appearing to be stymied by the stiffer-than-expected resistance, according to a United States defense official.

The United States and European nations announced several measures to support Ukraine as they fight to defend their nation: The United States and its allies agreed Saturday to take aim at Russia through SWIFT, a service that facilitates global transactions among thousands of financial institutions.

And the U.S. and others, such as Germany, were speeding badly needed weaponry and supplies to the outgunned Ukrainians, who were refusing to surrender.