184. President of Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelenskyy

0:00Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. Sign up to The Rest is Politics Plus to enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chatroom and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolitics.com. That's therestispolitics.com. It's quite a surreal notification to get presidents of Ukraine is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Right, so we will start in a minute. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hello. Hi. Hello, how are you? Good to see you. Thanks so much. No, thank you. Thank you. I'm very good. Well, listen, thank you for everything. And thank you for doing this interview now.

0:38And if you're ready, I'm ready to start. I'm okay. Ready.

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3:05Default terms at mintmobile.com. Okay, so President Zelensky, thank you so much for talking to me. We'll get into what's happening today, but first I want to go back in time to your great-grandparents who were among more than a million Ukrainian Jews killed during the Nazi occupation, to your grandfather who joined the Soviet Army in 1942, his three brothers who all perished. And I wonder what impact these stories had on you growing up as you learned your family's history. I think all the roots and all the stories of families have some important influence on your life. And it's understandable.

3:51And of course, I think that the people who experience the war, they are focusing only on very important things. So, of course, the time that I had with my grandfather, of course, had influence. Yes, because you speak about ordinary things But basing on your experience Of your life And yes, it has some influence But I think that family, education And also friends, school A lot of things which are very important Education is one of the very important things Which has influence on you On your view and on your values and how you see and how you feel the world and your attitude to everything. Tell me about your own parents.

4:45Happily, they're still alive, but it can't be easy for them at the moment seeing the life that you have to lead and the relentless pressure that you're under. No, I think my mother, of course, it's difficult for her to understand, to hear, to feel, and it's understandable very much. She's very sensitive. She knows me very well. That's why when she sees me, for example, on TV or somewhere, she understands when I'm tired or not, if I'm okay, or I have some questions or problems, and, of course, all these challenges. Yes, for her, maybe it's more difficult even for me. Yes, and for my father, no, he's very supportive.

5:29He understands very well. If with my mother we have communication Almost each day She calls me I'm so sorry I have to call But sometimes I'm busy I'm busy, I forget But she never forgot She has to call me I don't know If I'm not answering, by the way I have a problem It means that I will have 10, 20 phone calls from her So that's why it's better to answer the first And when you were growing up would they ever have thought that you would end up becoming a politician? No, no, no. Why not? Because my family is, you know, like the family of scientists, because my father is a scientist. And scientists are almost anti-political, anti-establishment, anti-parties.

6:24They never recognize politicians, etc. So that's why I said immediately, of course not So the politics is not a very important topic in my family So it was more about, yes, of course We discussed with my father and mother We discussed what's going on in the world But not from the point of politics From the point of, you know, challenges And from the point of security And the economy and etc So, but no politics Okay, and you did a law degree But because comedy was really your thing You then get into this KVN comedy competition Were you always very, very funny? As a child, were you funny? Yes, and we have good sense of humor in my family I always had My father, he loved to joke Yes, and a lot of such things We loved to read such books and funny stories and comedies just to have fun with family and etc.

7:31So we are not the New Rus. We are not grumpy. Huh? Grumpy New Rus. Not grumpy. You're a grumpy old man. So it's normal for us. I started in judicial university. I studied law because I'm in this profession. It was very popular. At this very moment When I started and when I graduated School So that's why Because my father, he's a scientist He's about cybernetic math It's all about it So I studied first math With him But what I understood That he's Clever than me in this, in math And I said to him, look I don't want to be the second That's why I don't want that you always look at me that in math you know more than me and you will know and understand more when even in 10 and 20 years.

8:35I don't want this feeling because I knew, by the way, I knew math very well, but not such well as my father because he is a professor and this is his life. And that's why I said no. You do your own thing. Something different, yes. And I wanted to go to study in some diplomacy in the university, in the capital, but it was, I mean, impossible because it was very, we didn't have enough for this budget because you need some money for this to live somewhere and etc. So I'm from another city, not from the capital. That's why it was difficult. But the most understandable was to study in the university, to study the law and to go to this profession.

9:25And very everybody in the world pretty much now knows that you played a teacher who became president, but you were very much more than a comedian. You were a kind of entertainment entrepreneur. You at one point, you're a TV executive, you're inventing different formats and so forth. Did you imagine that was going to be your life forever? Or did you was there always a part of you thinking, maybe politics? First of all, I loved my profession What I had before the politics I was the owner or one of the owners Of a big production company Maybe one of the biggest And of course, I loved this profession It was about creative things I was the CEO of this company Not only one of the owners I was the CEO of the company And then I loved TV and movie From the point of producing From the point of marketing And ideas So I loved to create the ideas It was like a business idea And to do it from the very beginning To the end It's like You know that there are positive producers And negative I think positive producers Who create the idea And then make the product Negative producers They only can find some money At the end of the process During the editing They will say It's not good It's something bad and etc.

10:49So I don't very respect such people because I think that the best producer find a way how to choose the great idea or to create it by himself or by herself. And you also, you met your wife Alina in that period. She was a comedy writer. And I'm just wondering before we get on to the really serious stuff, everything in your life right now must feel incredibly serious and stressful. Are you still able to have a good time with her and to have a laugh and actually just to joke about things? Or do you just feel weighed down by the pressure of what you're doing? By the way, my wife, before she became my wife, she was a scriptwriter.

11:30And I also love this profession. And I also was a scriptwriter some years. But now I don't have time, of course. Now I'm the president of the country which is in war. I'm focusing on one thing, on Ukraine, and this is my priority. If you are focusing and try to manage different things, you will not be successful in one. So that's why I can understand what is the most important for today for me and for Ukraine. I work for Ukraine, on Ukraine, but you sometimes, not to forget that you can't be very serious with everything, otherwise you will become crazy. Because it's just about crazy people who don't have sense of humor.

12:20It's crazy people. By the way, it's not only my opinion. I know a lot of soldiers, officers, and doctors who are managing and save lives. But you can't be very serious each moment. Yes, you have to be professional and be very serious with your profession. But there are some things on which you can't look very seriously. Otherwise, you will shift your focus from really serious things. Now, 2018, you announced that you're running for office. 2019, you win a runoff against Poroshenko with 73%. And at that point, Vladimir Putin has already annexed Crimea. He's begun his campaign. Did you feel at the time that he might one day go for a full invasion?

13:10And did you discuss with your friends and your family what that might mean for you, the prospect of being the war leader that you've now become? Or did you think it would never happen? and of course I couldn't estimate about full scale war it's unbelievable how it can be but really it was very bad surprise when they occupied Crimea you have borders with Russia you have long history a part of USSR history and of course you can't even imagine that will be someday it will be the aggression and it will be a full-scale war and not only temporary occupation, the really goal of Russians to occupy all your country to destroy Ukraine.

14:02I didn't know about it, of course. And also famously, when the invasion happened, you said to President Biden and President Erdogan, I don't need a ride, I need ammunition. That's the moment where I think people sense you were a leader of just exceptional leadership and courage. But was there a moment when you felt real personal fear at the scale of what you were about to be confronted with? I'm not. I mean, I'm a life person. We have all these emotions, what all the people have, of course. When you hear about children, about your country, about your family, it's very understandable. But for me, the most important is to push away any kind of emotions and to focus on the steps.

14:56That's what I can do, and I could do it before this profession. Yes, in the difficult moments, I can put myself together. So I had to do it And that's why I saw a lot of people around Who've been in a big stress And some chaos and etc But I think that I could manage what to do And of course, I had phone calls, you know, each 5-10 minutes During the first days of the war Yes, it was, I mean, very difficult And I had phone calls from all the From the generals of my country Just the government Which being in the western part I pushed and moved it to the western part of Ukraine Because I saw that if we will be Occupied totally We need to manage How to manage the country And that's why I decided I made some steps With banking system I can't share with you Where I moved them But I moved them And also I moved the government I had no big team in Kiev We had to stay here And of course leaders came to me That they said that in such And not only them, also security and etc I mean this own security They all said that in such circumstances We need to move you to some security places Somewhere And leaders of the world Including the United States They wanted to move me somewhere to other country and to help me with this and just to save me because they knew that Putin wants that.

16:37At this moment, it was understandable that the Russians wanted to occupy Kiev. And of course, they wanted to do something with me. Now it's understandable. Now it's not so difficult to look back and to understand what is the idea, how to occupy it. And of course the destabilization With the people when they don't have the leader When they don't have the president And you can't join everybody I made a decision It was not Something emotional etc So again God bless the education Helped me I understand what to do And I understood what Russians wanted And I knew What I had to do Like the president of the country And if I can go back to 1994 and the Budapest agreement, where the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia agreed that if Ukraine gave its nuclear weapons to Russia, you'd get guarantees of sovereignty and border security.

17:37That kind of went with Crimea, but it was now with the invasion, it was utterly shattered. Did your country feel betrayed at that point? For today, looking what's going on in the world, not only in Ukraine, in the Middle East, you understand that the biggest and the strongest security guarantees, it's you, your country, your people. when you want to exchange something, you can't exchange some military equipment, doesn't matter, by the way, nuclear in this case, in your example, or are they, I don't know, air defense and et cetera, or jets, sky fleet and et cetera. It doesn't mean, it meant that you have to exchange these on similar things.

18:28For example, it's very expensive to hold these jets Or the whole big army You exchange it to the place in NATO That this NATO fleet will defend you in a very dangerous moment If somebody will come to occupy you or something like this The same with nuclear weapon If you decided to change nuclear weapon The price had to be fair And I think that NATO is the smallest price Smallest what Ukraine What the leaders of Ukraine And the Ministry of Defense President, government, parliament What they had to get instead of nuclear weapons What we've got, we've got nothing So it's a not fair game And it's a big mistake in any way By the way, it's not only Ukrainian mistake.

19:26I don't want, you know, to push only these signals to our past. And they said it's also about other security guarantors who are in this Budapest memo. And it's nuclear countries. If they said that you will not have nuclear weapon, they have to give you umbrella of security, maybe nuclear umbrella, because you are nuclear countries and other things. And that's why it was lies Of course it was lies Without Dave Gatz Our nuclear weapon They moved it by the way Mostly to Russia So not only this I know how strategic aviation Was destroyed of Ukraine Totally The biggest jets Strategic aviation So they are very strong By the way such strategic jets Russia used against us during these full-scale wars.

20:21So a lot of different mistakes. You did have direct dealings with Vladimir Putin, first by phone, then you had face-to-face talks with him during the so-called Normandy talks when they resumed. I understand how you see him today. How did you see him then? I tried to find a way of negotiations. What I wanted just when I became the president, the young president who understood that we have to finish with this because we need to increase economy, GDP for Ukraine. And to do this, we need investment, we need free economy, we need the way to EU, and et cetera. Something what will open for us markets.

21:10And, of course, Russia's influence, the fact that they temporarily occupied us some territories, of course, and they also blocked for us some markets. It was understandable that we need to find a way of stabilizing the situation. That's why we needed to make some format of negotiations, because when I came, we had already Minsk agreement. We had the table for meetings and technical groups and etc. And we had thousands, no, maybe not thousands, but hundreds of such technical meetings before me and then after. And I wanted to speak with him and I wanted very much to end this Minsk agreement. Because for me, it was like, you know, it's such a format of destabilizing.

22:08not full-scale war but not peace time and this is a signal to all the investors so you can't develop your country and what's your sense of him today and his psychology and what you actually think he's trying to achieve right now i understand 100 percent what he wants today i think he made historical mistake with a full-scale war. And of course, occupation was also his mistake. But it was, you know, the moment of the life when you can find, at least try to find some diplomatic way to de-escalate. And he moved to this operation, which really became the war, moved to operation, he said about three, four days, but we know what was at the end.

22:59So this is a full-scale war And he really thought His estimation was that he can occupy us That leaders will take me out Or Russians will kill me It doesn't matter I mean this How to move me out from the capital Yes And they understood that Ukrainian people will not join And they will move to the parliament Because they had in parliament their party Which was financed by Russia and the party was the second, by the way, it was big party. They had the plan of operation of strategy.

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25:01our security service produced a report this week that said on the front line you're doing better than you have for almost a year and yet the language is all about you know he's still going and he keeps going so what do you think he is trying to achieve now i think for today he He understood that he can't occupy us totally. He recognized it for himself and for partners. I'm sure sometimes it's different to you. Sometimes he shares with partners not the things what he's thinking about really. Yes, but he recognizes that he can't occupy us now. The second point, it's understandable that he has so many losses for today.

25:47And on the front, he doesn't have well-trained people, enough number of well-trained soldiers and officers to destroy us. And he needs time for this. And I think that his goal is to find a way out with a victory. That's why he's trying to withdraw us from Donbass By diplomacy, by the way By the Americans' dialogue with us That we have by ourselves Withdraw from Donbass Because for him it's losses Hundreds of thousands, by the way We see that he can occupy Donbass in some years If he will be able I mean, not he can or not If he will be able to do it He needs more people, more money And losses will be from 300 ,000 to 1 million It depends how many years he will need Additional losses So this is a big prize even for Putin And that's why he wants to find Such a way of Of ending the war But for him That will be the pause In the way he will withdraw from ourselves By ourselves From Donbass Of course he understands that our people Our country will be divided Because to withdraw by ourselves you know, partially, people will be against it, of course.

27:10He understands that our unity can be divided. And he will lose. If the unity and society will be divided, he will continue very quickly to make something like a blitzkrieg and something like this to occupy us. If not, he will need pause. Pause for well-trained people for him, for training missions, for increasing the production and for blocking us economically, lifting sanctions from his energy sector and et cetera. Find a way to deal with Europe because ceasefire or something like this can help him also. So it's not only our wish. So you said there that he's doing it through the Americans and diplomacy, but surely do the Americans not understand that for you to give up Donetsk, parts of Donbass, is impossible because of the soldiers you lost.

28:08It's impossible for the people who live there. It's impossible because of the referendum that you would have to have, which you would lose if you put it there. And it would probably cause some kind of civil war, which presumably he would quite enjoy. So why are the Americans even pushing in that direction when they both understand it's literally impossible for you? Because I'm sure that they had a lot of different conversations with Putin and his team. And it's a pity, but we have to recognize that partially Americans are feeling that it's nothing for us. It's not such a big price for the peace to go out from our territories.

28:49and they don't want to recognize that Putin will like them and that he can continue the occupation even after such steps. They are sure, Americans are sure, that if we will withdraw Putin, that they can trust Putin. I think it is the biggest problem that we don't trust Putin and I think that they trust him. But even the American people, if you look at opinion, I saw an opinion poll two weeks ago. you were the most popular world leader in the United States. And Putin was second bottom only to Kim Jong-un. So the people don't trust him. Why do Witkoff and Kushner and Trump trust somebody who's shown himself to be so untrustworthy?

29:32Too much time together, first. The second point that really they made, I think, in Alaska some negotiations, they spoke about it. And I think that Putin was very open, very, for him, it was great success. that Americans involved him and invited him. But American people are on our side, and this is great. This is what helps us a lot. And this is big support. When I had a meeting with a negotiation group in Berlin, and I began to speak with them, not on the groups to groups, our negotiation group, I wanted to speak with them, to understand them, and I think that they understood me that not everything is as simple.

30:18Yes, and they contrast Putin. And they told me that really it was very, very important, very useful. We began to speak to each other before I didn't have such a possibility because Vitkov went only to Moscow and I didn't have communications with him. But sometimes our partners think that one element, and it will bring them quick, successful victory like ceasefire. Yeah, but you know, we need ceasefire for the long period of time. Not just for the week, for the week of celebration and then again, continuation of this tragedy. But I know what Putin wants. And he knows that I understand him. And he knows also that I understand that they are not so strong at the battlefield.

31:18And I think that he knows that only me understand. And that's why they share with Americans a lot of, you know, I mean, there's no truth. Yeah, blah, blah. And etc. So this is where we are. And I said very openly to our American friends, I'm thankful that they really want to end this war. It's true. And I said to them, look, if you want to try to negotiate any kind of these territorial challenges, you need to organize and to push Putin to a trilateral meeting on the level of leaders. He doesn't want, because this is the answer. I said, I will give you some examples where you will find the answer if he really wants to end the war or not.

32:07First, try to organize meeting on the level of leaders. speak about territories he didn't want first second if he doesn't want after ceasefire to occupy us propose him to put american soldiers with europeans on the contact line he said to them no any kind of soldiers so it means that he will go forward so he wants to go follow the third point he has about 20 I don't know 17 18 or 20 million millions of square kilometers he's 30 of Russia and when he speaks with Americans he said look what is the problem it's about 6 ,000 square kilometers so can you imagine really that the person which has dozens of millions of square kilometers and 70 % of these square kilometers are without life, any infrastructure.

33:08Do we really trust that he needs 5.8 thousand square kilometers? That this is the goal? No, this is not the goal. The goal is other things. It's like strategic place. So yes, it's true. It's not only geopolitical. from the format of the war. He will have these industrial cities, and after these industrial cities where we have fortification, defending lines to the field, open field, and straight roads to our regional capitals like Dnipro, Kharkiv, and et cetera. So it's understandable for what he wants. it. It's very hard watching, living in the UK as I do and doing this podcast every week and covering, talking about Ukraine a lot.