39
clear advantages. “They outnumber us
by several times,” says Yermak.
In almost every conversation with
foreign leaders, Zelensky asks for
weapons that could help level the
odds. Some countries, like the U.S.,
the U.K., and the Netherlands, have
agreed to provide them. Others wa-
vered, most critically the Germans.
“With the Germans the situation is re-
ally difficult,” Zelensky says. “They
are acting as though they do not want
to lose their relationship with Russia.”
Germany relies on Russia for a lot of its
natural gas supplies. “It’s their German
pragmatism,” says Zelensky. “But it
costs us a lot.”
Ukraine has made its frustration
clear. In the middle of April, German
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was
already on his way to visit Kyiv when
Zelensky’s team asked him not to come.
At times the President’s bluntness
can feel like an afront, as when he told
the U.N. Security Council that it should
consider dissolving itself. Olaf Scholz,
the German Chancellor, told me he
would have appreciated if Steinmeier
had been invited to Kyiv “as what he is,
a friend.” But Zelensky has learned that
friendly requests will not get Ukraine
the weapons it needs. That is how Zel-
ensky understands his core responsibil-
ity. Not as a military strategist empow-
ered to move battalions around a map,but as a communicator, a living symbol
of the state, whose ability to grab and
hold the world’s attention will help de-
termine whether his nation lives or dies.
His aides are keenly aware of that
mission, and some give Zelensky mixed
reviews. “Sometimes he slips into the
role and starts to talk like an actor play-
ing the President,” says Arestovych, who
was himself a theater actor in Kyiv for
many years. “I don’t think that helps us.”
It is only when Zelensky is exhausted,
he says, that the mask comes of. “When
he is tired, he cannot act. He can only
speak his mind,” Arestovych told me.
“When he is himself, he makes the
greatest impression as a man of integ-
rity and humanity.”
Perhaps it was lucky for me to meet
the President toward the end of a very
long day. Nearly two months into the
invasion, he had changed. There were
new creases in his face, and he no
longer searched the room for his ad-
visers when considering an answer to
a question. “I’ve gotten older,” he ad-
mitted. “I’ve aged from all this wis-
dom that I never wanted. It’s the wis-
dom tied to the number of people who
have died, and the torture the Russian
soldiers perpetrated. That kind of wis-
dom,” he added, trailing of. “To be
honest, I never had the goal of attain-
ing knowledge like that.”
It made me wonder whether he re-
gretted the choice he made three years
ago, around the time we first met. His
comedy show had been a hit. Standing
in his dressing room, he was still glow-
ing from the admiration of the crowd.
Friends waited backstage to start the
after-party. Fans gathered outside to
take a picture with him. This was just
three months into his run for the pres-
idency, when it was not too late for
Zelensky to turn back.
But he does not regret the choice
he made, not even with the hind-
sight of the war. “Not for a second,”
he told me in the presidential com-
pound. He doesn’t know how the war
will end, or how history will describe
his place in it. In this moment, he only
knows Ukraine needs a wartime Presi-
dent. And that is the role he intends to
play. —With reporting by Nik PoPli/
WashiNgtoN and simmoNe shah/
NeW York △
Zelensky addressing the
Portuguese parliament via
videoconference on April 21