A Conversation With President Zelensky (2024)

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From The New York times, I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”

Five years ago, a TV personality and comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, won the presidency in Ukraine in a landslide victory.

And then — [ALARM BLARING]

— after three years in office, he faced the biggest challenge of his presidency and of his life.

He rose to that challenge, beating back one of the world’s largest armies. But now —

The tide has turned against him.

Today, my colleague Andrew Kramer sat down with Zelenskyy to talk about the fight of his life and how it might end. It’s Tuesday, June 4. So, Andrew, you’ve been covering Ukraine for many years, and you first met President Zelenskyy back in 2020 before Russia invaded. Tell us what he was like back then.

There’s just an incredible density of events that have filled Zelenskyy’s tenure as president. I had an opportunity to interview president Zelenskyy in 2020. And this was during COVID, so it was a Zoom interview. And it was really a different era for Zelenskyy. He had just come in as president. He was baby-faced. He was a fresh presence in Ukrainian politics. And at this moment, he was trying to reset relations with the United States. There had been tensions with the Trump administration, and he wanted to turn a new page in bilateral relations.

And by tension with the Trump administration, you mean, of course, that Zelenskyy was in the middle of the first Trump impeachment. We may all forget, but Trump made a phone call to Zelenskyy, asking him to investigate not only Joe Biden, but also his son, Hunter Biden. And Trump hinted that the US would actually withhold military aid if Zelenskyy didn’t do that.

That’s right. The perfect phone call. That’s what President Trump called it. And during this time, Zelenskyy became briefly a known figure in the United States. But in Ukraine, he was known as a charismatic leader. He was a television personality before becoming president, and he had campaigned on an idea of a new morning in Ukraine. He would crack down on corruption. And a central element of his campaign had been to make peace with Russia.

It’s pretty interesting to remember, actually, that Zelenskyy started as someone who thought it was possible to make peace with Russia. That’s who he was as a politician when he started out.

And he had wide support. He was elected with 73 percent of the vote. So a lot of Ukrainians believed that he would actually be able to achieve this. But this had really fallen apart. And by the time I talked to him late in 2020, the prospects for these negotiations were very unclear. And it was, for this reason, more important than ever for the Zelenskyy administration to shore up support from the United States.

So that was 2020. A lot has changed. Clearly, at this point, Zelenskyy is not making peace with Russia anymore. You sat down with Zelenskyy a couple of weeks ago. Why did you want to talk to him again now?

Well, it’s a very interesting and critical moment in the war. The tide has turned in the war. Russia is pressing all along the front and American aid had been stalled for six months. And it was passed recently in congress, but it hasn’t yet arrived. So it’s a moment where Zelenskyy has his back against the wall. And what Zelenskyy has really zeroed in on is that the NATO countries and the United States should allow Ukraine to use donated Western weaponry to hit targets inside of Russia.

Now, of course, firing American weapons into Russia has really been a red line for the United States through the more than two years of this conflict because Russia is a nuclear armed power. And there have always been fears in the background that this would be provocative, this would be escalatory, and would really raise the risk of a wider war. So we wanted to understand how Zelenskyy was making that argument for Biden to allow him to use American weapons to hit targets inside of Russia, despite the risks.

So tell me about your interview. Start from the beginning.

Well, we walked into the presidential administration through a very tight security. It’s always an interesting experience arriving at the presidential office in Kyiv. There are sandbags and anti-tank barriers around the building.

We made our way through the compound to a ceremonial reception hall. This was in a 19th century building with exotic plaster moldings on the walls called the House of Chimaeras.

And I went to interview Zelenskyy with my colleagues, Phil Pan, the international editor, and Bill Brink, the Ukraine editor.

We waited there for about an hour before the president showed up.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When he walks into a room, you immediately notice that he’s there, that he’s a presence.

And he is a little bit shorter in real life than he might appear on television. And war has changed Zelenskyy. He looks haggard. And for the last two years, he’s been bearded and wearing only military fatigues. In this case, it was a green t-shirt and green trousers. But he did seem to be holding up all right. He looked healthy and he was very energetic.

After some small talk in English —

He switched into Ukrainian, and we spoke with him through a translator.

And our very first question was about this red line.

And he became quite animated. He was gesturing. He was using his skills as a public speaker to convey what he felt was a very important point.

And he was saying that it’s really not possible for him to fight when the Russians can gather their forces and fly their airplanes in Russia and then attack Ukraine, when he is not allowed to strike back as they gather across the border.

He was conveying this sense of fighting with one hand tied behind his back. And they have to endure the attacks from Russia, the bombings and the artillery strikes, and they’re not allowed to hit back.

And then —

He talked about the Northeastern part of Ukraine, near Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. It’s been a target of Russian attack. It’s bombarded almost daily. And it’s now one of the focal points of the war.

To defend Kharkiv, Ukraine has been forced to divert soldiers from elsewhere to fight this Russian incursion with the city at their backs.

And Zelenskyy was telling us that his intelligence can see the Russians unloading from trains weaponry and equipment just across the border in Russia, but he’s not allowed to strike it because of the restriction on the use of Western weaponry. And so he said he has no choice but to watch them prepare to attack.

And he had a very vivid image for this. He was saying that he sees the Russians gathering on that side of the border.

And that he knows they aren’t coming with flowers, but they’re coming with death.

In other words, what he was saying was that they’re basically sitting ducks. And if you could only use these big, powerful American weapons to shoot inside of Russia to take the war to Russians, then that could turn the tide of the war. But the Americans were just not letting him do that.

That’s right. And he’s also asking for very specific weaponry to do this. And it really speaks to Zelenskyy’s life over the past 2 and 1/2 years. His country depends on an arsenal of weaponry from allies who have often been reluctant to provide it. And he finds himself often coming with what amounts to a shopping list to these Western nations, describing what his military needs in any particular circ*mstance.

And what he told us —

Was that he needed seven Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems.

And 120 to 130 F-16 airplanes. And these kind of requests, well, understandable. His soldiers are engaged in combat, they’re suffering casualties, and civilians are being killed. So it’s of dire importance to Zelenskyy. But these type of requests have sometimes grated on Western politicians, so much so that last summer, the British minister of defense had said in response, and really in frustration, that, Zelenskyy, we’re not Amazon. Don’t come with a shopping list.

And this, of course, has been the view of the US administration as well. Hey, guy, we just gave you $60 billion. Have some gratitude.

Exactly.

OK, so it’s clear why shooting American weapons into Russia would help Zelenskyy. But how is he viewing the risk of Russia retaliating and potentially setting off a nuclear war? Because, of course, that’s why the US drew this red line in the first place, right?

Well, this is really the question of the hour on escalation.

And when we asked about this, Zelenskyy asked us, in a sense, to get inside Putin’s head a little bit and understand how he sees this playing out.

He was saying that Putin is an irrational actor, so obviously somebody to be feared.

But if he were to use nuclear weapons, he would have used them in the first year of the war when Russia was down and Ukraine was up. And he was also saying that —

Putin, he’s irrational, but he would also fear for his own life.

Using a nuclear weapon would obviously be risking World War III, and Putin would understand the consequences of this. So these were Zelenskyy’s explanations of why he felt the Russians were bluffing on the nuclear question.

So Zelenskyy’s conclusion was that the nuclear threat really isn’t real, that it’s not that much of a risk then for the West to let Ukraine cross that red line. Use those American weapons to shoot at Russians inside Russia.

Yes. And then last week, apparently, Biden was convinced by Zelenskyy’s arguments. The Biden administration and administration officials announced that American weapons could be used to hit targets inside of Russia. The decision to shift was weighing the risk of losing Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, or having it bombed into oblivion against a very small risk of a nuclear war. A large risk of losing a city and a small risk of nuclear war. But there were caveats.

The American permission only allowed the use of American weapons on the border and in response to Russian military attacks across the border on Ukraine. And it didn’t cover the most powerful rocket in the arsenal that the United States has provided, the attack-guided rocket. So we won’t see Ukrainian attacks on large Russian cities using American weapons, such as rocket attacks on Moscow. But it is evidence that the Biden administration has shifted a red line.

And it seems significant, even if it’s limited. So the red line maybe isn’t actually so red. What do you think this tells us?

It tells us that Zelenskyy has been persuasive with his style of public performance, with his style of reaching out directly to voters in the countries that are allies with Ukraine. He has pushed Western leaders to shift on red lines and to continually provide more military support for his military and change their policies on how they assist Ukraine.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

But Zelenskyy has another challenge. It’s something he doesn’t talk about nearly as much, but it’s just as important to winning the war. And this is a challenge inside Ukraine, in Ukrainian society.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We’ll be right back.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So, Andrew, you said that there was another big potential problem for Zelenskyy, and that was a problem in Ukrainian society. Tell me about that.

In short, it comes down to this. Not enough men want to fight, and Zelenskyy doesn’t know how to make them. He has been drafting men in relatively small batches throughout the country. And those who have signed up in the beginning, they are still serving at the front and have been fighting continuously for two years. So there’s fatigue of soldiers who are fighting and in the Army. And there’s also reluctance of those who have not yet been drafted to be drafted into the military.

So, Andrew, I’m really thinking about this with you and remembering back to those early days when you and I were walking around the streets of Kyiv and going into draft offices, and seeing everybody who signed up, right? History professors. I think you even interviewed a male stripper at some point that we were remarking on. Everybody wanted to fight. But that is very different now. What happened? What changed?

It’s now been two years, and there’s been a lot of dying. If you look at the number of men serving in the Ukrainian military now, including some units like the National Guard and border guards, it’s about 1 million men under arms. Out of that 1 million, about 10 percent have died so far. We don’t know the exact number of casualties in the Ukrainian army, but estimates are in the range of about 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers who have been killed over two years of war.

Wow.

One thing that I found really remarkable when you travel around in villages and towns is that there are almost always dry flowers all over the roads because there are funerals so often. And they put these flowers down, and then they have processions. So military vehicles will come very slowly carrying the body in a hearse. And people will get out of their cars and they’ll kneel on the side of the road while this procession goes by. And it’s these sort of scenes that are really frightening to men who are eligible for the draft and who know what it would mean to be called up and sent into the trench fighting.

And how many men are eligible for the draft?

In Ukraine, there are 3 to 4 million men who could be drafted and could be serving in the military. So they could be fighting a war of attrition with Russia with a larger army, where they’re able to mobilize and equip these additional soldiers. But they haven’t done this, and there’s been quite a bit of reluctance. So they’re at a moment now where they need soldiers, but the patriotic wave from earlier in the war has really washed over. And at this point, they’re going to have to use the power of calling up men against their will in order to continue fighting this war.

What does that look like in Ukraine now?

Well, the call-up of men from villages in some areas of Ukraine has been so great that there are villages without men. There are villages where women, when they see the draft officials coming into town, they have swarmed these vehicles and are protesting to protect the few remaining men in these areas. There have been roadblocks put up in Kyiv and other towns to stop cars and check draft registration documents on the street. And sometimes, men are asked to report to basic training within as little of a week after being stopped at one of these surprise checkpoints.

And this has been disruptive. And men are fearful of being caught in one of these roadblocks and approached by draft officials. And there are even social media apps that track where they’re moving around town. For example, in Kyiv, there’s an app called Weather in Kyiv. And it’ll say it’s raining on a certain intersection. And that would mean that the draft officials are there and men should avoid that area.

Interesting. And is Zelenskyy acknowledging this challenge? The challenge of trying to get men to fight in the war.

Politically, Zelenskyy has disassociated himself from the challenges of the draft. He’s said this is a problem for parliament or for the military. It’s politically very unpopular. And he hasn’t, for example, given major speeches calling on Ukrainians to sign up and explaining the draft policies.

In our interview, he did, though, acknowledge the toll of the war on Ukrainian society. And he described this as divisions.

That there had been some rift in society between men who were fighting and men who were not fighting.

And for somebody trying to steer a country in a war, this could be a problem.

So given that fewer and fewer people want to fight, and war is obviously fundamentally about fighting, where is Ukrainian society’s head right now on this war? And what is their appetite to stop it? Do people want to call it quits, agree to just, OK, lob off a third of their territory and give it to Russia and finally be done with this? Or is a full draft, mass mobilization finally going to be on the table?

Well, this is what makes Zelenskyy’s situation now so interesting is he’s in a bind. He’s ruling a country that on the one hand, there’s massive support for continuing the war. There’s incredible anger at Russia. Still seething anger at Russia over this war, and no desire to negotiate. On the other hand, you have fewer and fewer people actually willing to fight. So Zelenskyy is caught between these two positions, and it’s a difficult moment.

OK, to summarize here, Zelenskyy has been pushing on these red lines abroad. He’s getting stuff. He made some progress last week, but it seems like it’s not enough to dig himself out of the hole he’s in. And at home, there’s kind of a similar dynamic. He’s done these small batch drafts of men, but that also seems like it’s not enough to really win. And now he’s in this very hard place. And to put it very bluntly, it seems like a losing place.

Well, this is probably the moment of most uncertainty for Zelenskyy and for Ukraine since the beginning of the war. There’s no popular decision for Zelenskyy. Drafting more soldiers is unpopular. If he doesn’t draft soldiers and settles in a ceasefire negotiation, that will also be unpopular. Zelenskyy is really squeezed between two fires. And this is all against the backdrop of Russia escalating an offensive that’s expected to continue through the summer.

How is he coping with this? This is a lot on his shoulders.

Well, this is something that we asked in the interview.

And we talked to him on what was the 817th day of the war.

He doesn’t tell jokes like he used to. One aspect of the war is that his life as a comedian has really come to a close, and he’s become a much more serious public figure.

He said that he deals with some of the stresses of leadership by working out in the morning.

And he was most expressive and went on at some length about his family.

He said that through the course of the war, his children have grown up. His daughter is now 19. His son is 11. And he said that he would spend time with his son working on Spanish homework.

Andrew, how did you end the interview?

I asked him what he would do after the war. And I thought his answer was telling.

He said there’s a distinction between the end of the war and victory.

And then he described what would happen after victory. He would spend time with his family and his dogs. But what he left unsaid was what his life would look like if Ukraine lost the war.

And what would it look like?

Well, one scenario is that he could die at the end of this. [MUSIC PLAYING]

He’s been the target of 10 assassination attempts, according to his government. Another possible outcome would be that Ukraine could lose a large chunk of its territory in a settlement agreement. So it’s understandable why he didn’t go into the details, but it was still remarkable that he acknowledged just for a moment this vulnerability, this idea that there could be an outcome for Ukraine other than victory.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Andrew, thank you.

Thank you, Sabrina. [MUSIC PLAYING]

We’ll be right back.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Here’s what else you should know today.

[PEOPLE CHANTING]

On Sunday, Mexican voters elected the country’s first woman and first Jewish president, Claudia Sheinbaum.

It was a landslide victory for the 61-year-old climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City. Sheinbaum, a leftist, had campaigned on a promise to continue the legacy of Mexico’s current president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Under Obrador, millions of Mexicans were lifted out of poverty. But he was also criticized for failing to control rampant cartel violence. The election was the largest in Mexico’s history, with the highest number of voters taking part. And it puts a Jewish leader at the helm of one of the world’s largest predominantly Catholic countries.

And President Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday, allowing him to temporarily seal the US border with Mexico when the number of migrant crossings exceed a certain threshold. The order would suspend protections for asylum seekers in the US, and represents the most restrictive border policy instituted by Biden, who is under intense political pressure to address illegal migration. Polls suggest that there is growing support, even inside the president’s own party, for more aggressive border measures. The executive order is likely to be challenged in court.

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Today’s episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Claire Toeniskoetter, Rob Szypko, and Diana Nguyen, with help from Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Marion Lozano and Elisheba Ittoop, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sashko Chubko.

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That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

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