Original subtitles

(APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: In a war that has changed the world,

how did a comedian and actor

who, to everyone's surprise, was elected president in 2019,

become the hero of Ukrainian resistance?

This is the story of Volodymyr Zelensky,

from his beginnings as a comic to his election as president of Ukraine,

and how in just a few weeks, he's become

one of the most admired leaders in the world

but also the man Putin wants dead.

(INAUDIBLE)

(COUNTS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

He's made me more famous and I've made him more famous.

(LAUGHTER)

(INAUDIBLE)

(EXPLOSIONS)

Russia has invaded Ukraine.

(PROJECTOR WHIRRS)

NARRATOR: Volodymyr Zelensky was born in 1978 in Kryvyi Rih,

an industrial town in south-eastern Ukraine,

and grew up in an ordinary Soviet family.

His mother was an engineer, his father a computer teacher.

His parents wanted him to become a lawyer,

but Volodymyr had other plans.

He wanted to tread the boards.

(APPLAUSE)

(LAUGHTER, CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: Zelensky grew up as the Soviet Union was falling apart,

which meant that he was able to discover Western culture.

He experimented with the guitar,

playing his favourite English-language rock songs,

but he mostly binged on video cassettes of British comedy.

He was a fan of Monty Python

and saw himself as a sort of Ukrainian Benny Hill.

(LIGHTHEARTED MUSIC)

(SONG IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(RHYTHMIC CLAPPING)

NARRATOR: Barely out of his teens, Zelensky got noticed on KVN,

the comedy show and competition

which became popular in the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

Groups of comedians would compete against each other

in improvised battles

before being given scores by a jury.

(MAN READS SCORES IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: Zelensky took part with his group, Kvartal 95,

which he formed with childhood pals.

(LAUGHTER)

NARRATOR: From the late 1990s into the 2000s,

the group ruled supreme over this Soviet-style comedy competition,

keeping the whole country in stitches

with their popular style of schoolboy humour,

mixing mime and cartoonish farce, fooling around as ostriches, pimps

or figure skaters, making Zelensky Ukraine's favourite clown.

(COMICAL MUSIC)

From this success, Volodymyr Zelensky was now able to launch

his own production company - Studio Kvartal 95.

The comedian became a star throughout the entire former Soviet Union,

even in Russia, Russian being the language

in which he performed his sketches.

NARRATOR: In 2006, Zelensky added another line to his CV,

this time without needing to speak Russian OR Ukrainian,

since he was communicating with his body,

winning the Ukrainian version of Strictly Come Dancing.

SONG: # But don't you

# Step on my blue suede shoes

# Yeah

# Well, you can do anything

# But lay off of my blue suede shoes

# Ah! #

NARRATOR: On the big screen, Zelensky triumphed in rom-coms

or as a totally bonkers Napoleon.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(BLADE RINGS)

(YELLS)

NARRATOR: In a tragic irony, in this film, Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon,

Zelensky tries to invade Russia.

(YELLS)

NARRATOR: The comedian was everywhere, on every screen,

and even when you didn't see him, you'd hear him,

because he was the Ukrainian voice of Paddington Bear.

NARRATOR: But it was above all on television

that Zelensky assured his place as the country's number one comic,

with his prime-time show every Saturday night.

(INAUDIBLE)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: A comedy show in which Zelensky and his group

maintained the formula that had made them such a success -

irreverent humour, bawdy jokes

and dance routines in high heels.

(SONG IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: They had no qualms about getting near the knuckle -

in fact, getting more than just near it.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(PIANO MUSIC) (LAUGHTER)

(SHOUTS)

(APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: For several years,

Evening Kvartal was the country's most watched show.

The satirical sketches spared no-one, not even Vladimir Putin,

as seen here in 2014, when Zelensky played Putin's secret mistress,

the famous gymnast Alina Kabaeva,

in the process taking a pop at the invasion of Crimea

and the censorship of Russian media.

(LAUGHTER)

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

(LAUGHTER)

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

(LAUGHTER)

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: But the ultimate masterpiece

of Volodymyr Zelensky's political satire

was Servant of the People, the TV series he created in 2015,

a year after Ukraine's Maidan Revolution,

in which he played a history teacher

who becomes the president.

NARRATOR: It all begins when he's secretly filmed by a student

as he fulminates against the corruption in his country.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(REPEATED BLEEPING)

NARRATOR: Urged on by his students after his rant goes viral online,

the history teacher becomes the president.

NARRATOR: Over three seasons,

the series Servant of the People broke viewing records

and got the Ukrainians wishing that fiction could become reality.

NARRATOR: Since February 24, Ukraine has been at war.

When you hear the name of the country now,

it's practically impossible to think of anything other

than images like these.

(SIRENS HOWL)

But what was Ukraine before this?

Well, here's Ukraine, jammed between Russia and Poland.

Ukraine also gave us the painter Malevich, the actress Mila Kunis,

the footballer Shevchenko,

and it's won the Eurovision Song Contest twice.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(AUDIENCE CALLS RESPONSE)

(AUDIENCE CALLS RESPONSE)

(SHOUTS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(SINGS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: Ukraine also has its own traditional music,

which is probably a little easier on the ear.

(TRADITIONAL MUSIC)

But Ukraine is, above all, a land with a complex history.

A former province of the Russian Empire,

it was for a long time known as Little Russia,

becoming part of the Soviet Union in 1922.

VOICEOVER: This is Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine,

one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union.

This is its flag and its emblem,

hammer and sickle in a frame of ears of wheat.

NARRATOR: Stalin imposed the Russian language on Ukraine

as well as his communist policies,

which led to devastating famines, such as that of 1932.

VOICEOVER 2: A nation the size of France is strangled by hunger.

In less than two years, 10 million people die,

3 million of them children.

NARRATOR: During the Second World War,

hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Jews were murdered,

among them, ancestors of Volodymyr Zelensky.

NARRATOR: More recently, three major dates

have marked the country's history.

1991 was the year of Ukraine's independence.

After 200 years of Russian hegemony, the country was finally free,

or almost.

2004 saw the Orange Revolution.

This exploded after the fraudulent election of Yanukovych.

Followers of his opponent, Viktor Yushchenko,

took to the streets to protest about the fraud.

NARRATOR: The result was finally invalidated,

but the revolution left the country split in two,

the result of which, in 2014, was the Maidan Revolution.

(EXPLOSIONS)

The movement's objective

was to remove a thoroughly corrupt political class.

Bloody clashes took place in Kiev's Independence Square.

At this time, Zelensky was already hosting

his popular Saturday night show,

doing his best to keep the country laughing.

NARRATOR: The demonstrations led to the election

of pro-European Petro Poroshenko.

At the same time, pro-Russian factions

took advantage of the weakened political power base to declare

their independence in Donbass

while Putin annexed Crimea.

(APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: This resulted in part of the country being at war

while the political scene was corrupt to the core.

The Ukrainian people had lost all faith and turned instead

to Servant of the People,

the series in which an ideal president, played by Zelensky,

rid them all of their dodgy politicians.

(SONG IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(SHOUTS)

NARRATOR: But what if this perfect president from Servant of the People,

honest, upright

and determined to reform the country and root out corruption,

what if Volodymyr Zelensky could play him for real?

(LAUGHTER)

(WHISTLING, CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(LAUGHTER)

NARRATOR: As the country underwent a serious economic crisis

and became bogged down in the war in Donbass,

the Ukrainians, sick of their political elite,

were desperate for change.

Borne aloft by the huge success of the TV series,

Zelensky finally announced his candidature on New Year's Eve 2018.

NARRATOR: Yes.

It was as people were popping champagne corks, and on TV,

that he announced his candidature.

He didn't have a program but promised an end to corruption and the war.

NARRATOR: But the comic's first challenge was to be taken seriously.

NARRATOR: To convince voters, he toured the country by bus.

NARRATOR: But instead of classic political meetings,

he put on shows with his long-established gang.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: It was a showbiz campaign,

a long way from the usual staid political speeches.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: Lacking both experience and political proficiency,

the actor made up for this with charisma,

compensating for political deficiencies with punchlines.

Similarly to Trump, he embodied the rejection of the political elite.

He'd never held office before, and that was what people liked.

NARRATOR: In baseball cap, beanie or hoodie,

Zelensky showed himself to be close to the people,

with a campaign filmed like a Netflix series and broadcast on social media.

Da-da! Da-da!

NARRATOR: Zelensky easily made his adversaries look past it,

and his character in the TV series helped him shoot up the polls.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(LAUGHTER)

NARRATOR: It wasn't always very clear who was campaigning,

Zelensky or the ideal president of Servant of the People.

His party's name was the same as the one in the series.

And to confuse things even further,

the final season was broadcast only a few days

before the first round of the election.

Just before going to vote, the Ukrainians were seeing

one of the candidates already president on TV.

NARRATOR: The Zelensky phenomenon

sparked the interest of the international media.

We too went to see him on the set, a few months before the election.

(CHOIR SINGS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: We too got to meet this candidate,

who was already playing at being the president.

MAN: When you're... just in the scene we were watching,

you're addressing the nation.

Do you feel you could be doing the same thing in a few weeks?

You're ready for that?

I think so, yes.

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure meeting you.

NARRATOR: But Zelensky hadn't convinced everyone,

and when he came across pro-Russian Ukrainians...

..the atmosphere was tense.

NARRATOR: Another thorn in Zelensky's side

was his closeness to the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi.

The third richest man in the country

and former boss of Ukraine's biggest bank,

he'd been living in exile since being accused of embezzling $2 billion.

But above all, he was the owner

of the TV channel 1+1,

which broadcast all of Zelensky's programs.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: Kolomoyskyi financed the comedian's campaign,

providing him with an unbeatable media platform on his channels.

Zelensky's adversaries saw Zelensky as the face

and Kolomoyskyi as the brain of a 2-headed candidature.

People say that you are just a puppet of Igor Kolomoyskyi...

Yes.

..that you've been put forward as his candidate.

NARRATOR: Despite all this, in March 2019,

Zelensky came top in the first round of the election,

far ahead of Petro Poroshenko, the incumbent.

And when it came time for a debate,

it was the comedian who imposed the conditions.

NARRATOR: It seems a surreal proposition,

and yet 22,000 people were present for this debate

between the first and second rounds,

presented like a boxing match, and Zelensky was in his element.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(CHEERING)

(INAUDIBLE)

NARRATOR: On April 21, 2019,

after several months of showbiz campaigning...

..reality caught up with fiction.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) (CONFETTI POPS)

With 73% of the votes, Volodymyr Zelensky, at the age of 41,

was elected president of Ukraine.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: His inauguration took place a month later.

Volodymyr Zelensky showed up at Parliament to take his oath

like a star.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

The images are surprising,

seemingly a cut-and-paste of his inauguration in the TV series,

filmed four years earlier.

That day, Volodymyr Zelensky went from being the servant of the people

to the protector of the nation.

(APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: And to stress his difference

from preceding politicians,

Zelensky announced from the off that he would be a normal president.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: He wanted to demystify the office

and show the Ukrainian people what goes on behind the scenes.

In his first few days,

he invited a crowd of journalists to his office for a guided visit.

(CHATTER IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: Zelensky was discovering the reins of power

and wanted everyone to discover them with him.

NARRATOR: In front of the camera, he was doing what he does best -

putting on a show.

NARRATOR: His presidency started to seem like a reality TV show.

To choose his spokesperson, Zelensky organised a competition

in which the candidates were judged on their handling of stress

and sense of humour,

and when members of Parliament of his party were accused of taking bribes,

he had them take a lie detector test live on Facebook.

NARRATOR: Zelensky was emphasising transparency and proximity,

his main communication tool being social media.

NARRATOR: The president was a master at the art of the selfie

and took to talking about his routine while driving his car

like some YouTuber.

NARRATOR: The tone was relaxed, the context informal.

The videos seemed to be filmed on a whim,

simply when he felt like talking.

NARRATOR: Volodymyr Zelensky or the first influencer president?

NARRATOR: A sort of presidential infotainment.

He even had guest stars.

In 2019, when Tom Cruise was scouting locations for a film,

he found himself invited to the president's office.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

You're good-looking. (LAUGHTER)

Like a movie. It pays the rent.

(LAUGHTER)

NARRATOR: Visibly starstruck, Zelensky played it modest,

but after becoming president, he was easily the equal of Tom Cruise.

On each official outing, the president caused a riot.

His bodyguards were overwhelmed by requests for selfies.

NARRATOR: Zelensky found it hard to say no

and was working hard at staying popular,

although after two and a half years running the country,

his record was somewhat disappointing.

In Donbass, the war was still raging, and his critics were more numerous.

The learner president found journalists hard to deal with.

NARRATOR: As for the other major promise of his campaign,

his fight against corruption,

nothing had changed there either.

Worse, when several people close to him were implicated in bribery cases,

Zelensky said nothing.

Then he ended up at the heart of one of the biggest scandals

of Donald Trump's presidency.

He's made me more famous and I've made him more famous.

(LAUGHTER)

NARRATOR: In 2019, a whistleblower revealed the contents

of a phone call between the two presidents.

Trump can be heard asking Zelensky

to investigate the business dealings in Ukraine of Hunter Biden,

son of his rival for the presidency, Joe Biden.

In return, Zelensky would be getting $400 million worth of military aid,

something Ukraine couldn't pass up.

MAN: Have you felt any pressure from President Trump

to investigate Joe B... Joe Biden and Hunter Biden?

I think you read everything.

So you...I think you read text.

I, uh...

..I'm sorry, but I... I don't want to be involved

to democratic, open...

..um...

..mmm...

..elections.

NARRATOR: In the US,

this shocking scandal led to impeachment proceedings,

while in Ukraine, the learner president was ridiculed,

with people calling him Monica Zelensky,

in a reference to Bill Clinton's intern.

(INAUDIBLE)

I can see you're angry with President Trump.

Maybe a little bit, huh?

A little bit? (LAUGHS)

NARRATOR: Zelensky went from setback to setback.

In 2021, he even found himself embroiled

in the Pandora Papers affair.

(SHOUTING)

(EXPLOSIONS)

NARRATOR: To understand this war, we must look at Putin's motives.

(EXPLOSIONS)

NARRATOR: How did it come to this?

Back in 1991, with the fall of the USSR

and the independence of all the countries in the former Soviet bloc,

Russia lost practically all of its influence,

a fact which Putin, who became president in 1999,

has never been able to stomach.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: Also, after the fall of the USSR,

NATO, the military organisation created by the US

and certain European powers

to stand up to the Soviet Union,

has kept on expanding eastwards,

an absolute affront to Putin.

NARRATOR: No such promise was ever made.

But Putin revised history to justify his plan

to restore Russia's imperial prestige and Soviet-era territory.

The problem was more and more former Soviet bloc countries

were joining NATO.

Today, we proudly welcome...

..Estonia...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

..Latvia...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

..Lithuania.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

We welcome them into the ranks

of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NARRATOR: By 2020, practically every country on the European continent

had joined NATO.

Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia

were the only remaining buffer zones between Russia and the West.

NARRATOR: But while Ukraine had never made a secret

of its desire to join NATO,

discussions on the matter were a long way from completion.

Still, for Putin, this was too much.

He was already threatening his neighbour back in 2005.

NARRATOR: Putin's other fear was that Ukraine

might join the European Union,

something that people were calling for during the Maidan Revolution.

NARRATOR: But not all Ukrainians agreed, especially in Donbass,

home to a large number of pro-Russian separatists.

Putin took advantage of their uprising,

aiding them militarily and provoking war in 2014.

Then there was Crimea, this small peninsula in southern Ukraine.

For a long time, it had belonged to Russia,

and Putin had never accepted that his country

had lost the port of Sebastopol,

with its strategic access to the Black Sea.

NARRATOR: In 2014, at the time of the Maidan Revolution,

Putin arranged for a referendum to be held in Crimea.

The people were asked to vote for or against becoming part of Russia.

The result of over 95% of votes being in favour

wasn't recognised by any international body.

Putin annexed Crimea all the same.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: Despite the outcry from the international community,

Putin rolled in his army, put up a long wall at the border

and had a bridge built, at 18km, the longest in Europe,

linking Crimea to Russia.

NARRATOR: As a result, when Zelensky came to power in 2019,

Crimea was annexed to Russia,

Donbass was in the hands of separatists,

supported by the Kremlin,

and Ukraine's sovereignty was being scorned by Moscow,

which was flexing its muscles with megalomaniac military parades.

Yet despite all that, Putin was still sounding reassuring.

(APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: So when the former actor Volodymyr Zelensky came to power,

he inherited an annexed Crimea and war in Donbass.

In his first international speech to NATO in 2019,

he made peace in Donbass a priority.

We are ready to negotiate with Russia.

However, we must first be able to protect ourselves

and to become stronger.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

NARRATOR: But Zelensky knew that speeches would not be enough.

He had to make an impression as a military leader.

From the beginning of his presidency,

he visited the troops on the Donbass front line with cameras in tow.

The young president was there to boost morale

and seemed quite unaware of the danger.

NARRATOR: Yet this was a vicious, bloody war, and it was dragging on.

Since 2014, there had been 14,000 deaths.

Zelensky's strategy was to YouTube the conflict.

He was filmed sitting in the kitchen of a Donbass inhabitant,

in whose home he even spent the night.

(LAUGHS)

NARRATOR: To try to keep things from escalating,

the former actor went on the front line, checking for himself

that the Ukrainian soldiers were respecting the ceasefire.

NARRATOR: Back in Kiev, he threw himself into a diplomacy offensive

aimed at Vladimir Putin.

NARRATOR: The first meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents

took place in Paris in 2019.

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron,

trying to keep their relationship with Putin on an even keel,

acted as referees.

NARRATOR: The atmosphere was chilly, glacial, even.

It was hard for Zelensky to find his feet.

He was as good as humiliated by Putin

when the latter ordered him to turn around for a photo.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

NARRATOR: The Ukrainians took a dim view of the encounter,

fearing that the president was giving in to pressure from Putin.

NARRATOR: And despite the meeting, Putin kept on seizing territory,

violating the ceasefire and amassing troops on the border.

Zelensky was not backing down, but instead of responding with violence,

he preferred words and symbols,

like on the occasion of Ukraine's 30 years of independence.

NARRATOR: He went all-out with the diplomatic efforts, meeting leaders around the world,

warning them of the threat and requesting support.

At the UN in 2019,

he was already pointing out the possible repercussions for the world

of what was happening in Ukraine, in an almost prophetic speech.

NARRATOR: But above all, on each trip,

at every intervention on the international stage,

Zelensky would stress his country's desire to turn westwards,

as here, at NATO headquarters.

The strategic course of Ukraine to achieve

full-fledged membership in the EU and NATO

remains unchanged.

This is the priority of our foreign policy.

(INAUDIBLE)

NARRATOR: By wanting to join NATO,

Zelensky had crossed the Kremlin's red line.

And this stand-off became personal for Putin

when the Ukrainian courts went after

Kiev's most influential pro-Russian lobbyist,

who was also the leader of the main opposition party.

NARRATOR: Viktor Medvedchuk had been a close friend of Putin's

for decades.

The Russian president was the godfather of his youngest daughter,

and the two went on holiday together.

So when Zelensky's government accused Medvedchuk of treason

and spreading disinformation,

Putin saw red, publicly expressing his anger a few days later.

NARRATOR: All through Volodymyr Zelensky's presidency,

the Russian threat has kept growing.

(INAUDIBLE)

NARRATOR: And yet right up to the last moment,

Zelensky held on to the belief

that a diplomatic solution to the conflict was possible,

even despite American warnings in mid-February

that an invasion was imminent.

The best friend for enemies, that is panic in our country,

and all this information, that helps only for panic.

It doesn't help us.

NARRATOR: Then, on 23 February, when Zelensky realised

that Putin really was going to launch an attack,

he tried to talk to the Russian people, in Russian,

but it was already too late,

and in any case, the message wouldn't get through the censors.

MAN: Whoa! (ROCKETS WHOOSH)

(EXPLOSIONS)

NARRATOR: Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began,

President Zelensky has transformed himself into a genuine war chief,

the very incarnation of Ukrainian resistance.

Putin wants his country and his head.

NARRATOR: Volodymyr Zelensky has become the world's most wanted man,

now being hunted by Putin's mercenaries,

the terrifying Wagner Group.

It seems he's already escaped at least one assassination attempt.

But from the very start, the president has been adamant

that he would not be leaving Kiev or his country.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: "I am here."

With these words, Zelensky was not talking to his people like a leader

but as a friend, a brother, a comrade,

the opposite of Putin.

While the Russian dictator appears with his ministers

at the other end of an immense table,

Zelensky is surrounded by his fellows in the streets of the capital.

NARRATOR: "We are all here," meaning that Zelensky is part of the fight,

making himself just as vulnerable

as the citizens he had exhorted to resist only days previously,

in his last appearance in a suit.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: When the US offered to exfiltrate him out of the country,

Zelensky brushed them off, asking instead for arms and ammunition.

His courage has surprised and inspired the Ukrainians.

MAN: The Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian military,

Zelensky, everything, everything's been inspiring.

Even the other countries surrounding,

everybody's just, like... it's, like, galvanised everybody.

NARRATOR: In his hand, he holds his most powerful weapon - his phone.

Like a Winston Churchill version 2.0,

Zelensky communicates and informs his nation by using social media.

(INAUDIBLE)

Despite the bags under his eyes, he appears calm and friendly,

even joking, while always looking directly into the camera.

NARRATOR: His daily update, while dressed in khaki,

reassures his nation and the rest of the world.

Newspapers everywhere sing Zelensky's praises.

In countless countries, people are demonstrating

for him and for Ukraine,

like here in Prague, or here in Tbilisi, where he spoke to the crowd.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(CHANTING)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: Zelensky has also welcomed the support of Sean Penn,

whom he met in his bunker.

I was endlessly impressed and moved...

..by him

and terrified for him and for Ukraine.

NARRATOR: All of this is useful for the president's communications.

He also posted an extract of his Skype session with Elon Musk,

who has made his satellites available

to guarantee Ukraine's internet connection.

If you have time after the war, you're very welcome. I invite you.

That sounds good. Well, I look... I look forward to...to visiting.

NARRATOR: Zelensky's other major weapon is his skill as an orator.

On 8 March, between two standing ovations,

he quoted Shakespeare to a packed House of Commons in the UK.

NARRATOR: Then he channelled Winston Churchill's famous speech

from June 1940.

NARRATOR: A week before this,

his words had brought the European Parliament to its feet.

(APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: The interpreters struggled, choking on the emotions.

MAN: We're fighting...

..just for our land... (SNIFFS)

(EMOTIONALLY) ..and for our freedom...

..despite the fact

that all large cities of our country are now blocked.

NARRATOR: One German interpreter broke down completely

while live on air.

(WOMAN SPEAKS GERMAN)

(SOBS)

NARRATOR: The war goes on, but so do the speeches.

When seen one after another, they show how the despair is growing.

NARRATOR: Above all, through these interventions,

Zelensky has shown himself to be

a Ukrainian resistance fighter like any other.

He even moves his chair himself to talk to journalists...

Hello, Mr President. Hello.

Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

Hi. How are you? Thank you.

..and makes no attempt to hide either his emotions or his fatigue,

which is plain to see on his face.

I'm sorry. It's...we... we sleep three, four hours.

MAN 2: That's OK. I can ask again. No, no, no. Just a second, please.

About if...if I spoke with Biden, President Biden, yes.

I think yesterday or day before yesterday. I don't remember.

NARRATOR: But Zelensky is still there,

filming his city of Kiev from the windows of his office...

(INAUDIBLE)

..the very same office

he smilingly showed journalists around two years ago.

NARRATOR: And a few days ago, between two aerial attacks,

the despair morphed into poetry.

Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2022