Long used to savage attacks by the Kremlin and Russian army, now the showman turned statesman is getting hit below the belt by the thin-skinned new American President Donald Trump.
But many Ukrainians are having nothing of it.
« You know, we Ukrainians have seen plenty of war and revolution and we don’t like when someone tells us who are president should be, » Anastasiya, a 27-year-old IT worker from Kyiv said.
« He’s not perfect, » she says of Zelensky. But few people in this world are. But we voted for him and only we have the right to criticize him. »
Anastasiya, whose brother is serving in the Ukrainian army, said her « her heart melted » when she heard the rhetoric coming from the new administration in Washington.
Katya, a 28-year-old German philologist, said it’s « simply not true » what Trump and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk have been saying about Zelensky.
« The war is not his [Zelensky’s] fault and he is hardly a dictator., » she said.
But does Mr. Z have what it takes to see Ukraine through this bloody conflict? » I ask her.
« He cannot do it alone, » she says, « We need help from our partners, too. »
However, from the sound of what’s coming from the always blunt, if not usually very specific Trump, that help may be in short supply.
The US president and Musk, who have described the democratically elected Zelensky as a tyrant, while painting putin, widely recognized as a war criminal, as a victim of the war who seeks peace, appears intent on turning US policy on its head.
And he’s not above Owellian rhetoric to justify it.
« It’s like someone telling you white is black, » Anastasiya says.
Oleksiy, a father of two, who could see himself and his elder son conscripted if things go south and Trump turns off the tap on arms deliveries, said that although he did not vote for Zelensky back in 2019, he believes that the country needs to fall behind its leader during these dangerous times.
« Changing presidents at this stage in the game would be a huge loss for Ukraine, » he says.
And also for Europe – and ironically the United States as well.
« He’s not a professional politicians but he is trying … and he was very effective in the first year of the war, » says Tonia, a soft spoken 34-year-old who works for a company that sells medical supplies.
Having abandoned her home outside Kyiv as the Russia army approached in 2022, Tonia now sees buildings in her neighborhood struck and enflamed by Iranian made drones.
Never having been interested in politics, she says: « To be honest, I don’t really understand what this [rhetoric by Trump] is all about. »
Instead, like most Ukrainians, she tries to live her live as normally as possible, despite the war that comes crashing into it in the form of ballistic missile attacks.
Whether Zelensky is the man who can stop such attacks, push the Russians out of Ukraine or at least hold together the Western coalition that Trump seems intent on destroying remains to be seen.
« I want to believe that he is a patriot, » Oleksiy says cautiously about Zelensky’s, « but in any case he’s all that we’ve got. »
As for the Trump administration, Oleksiy sees little reason to trust:
« He [Trump] is not my president and I know that an American president’s top interest is the United States. But I’m afraid they are going to sell us out. »
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