Wolodymyr Selenskyj always chose his own stages: sometimes he traveled as a comedian with his comedy troupe "Kwartal 95" ("95th block of flats") across the Ukraine and pulled over the politicians of his country, sometimes he played in the TV series "Sluga naroda" ("Servant of the People") the decent, but somewhat naive President Wassyl Holoborodko, who cleaned up the corruption.
This was so well received by the Ukrainians that the actor decided to switch to politics to prove to himself and to everyone that he, a man of the people, can really make Ukraine a better country.
Selenskyj is now in office for five months - and they were turbulent for the presidential newcomer. Not that the 41-year-old had thought it would be easy to crack down on the corrupt system in Ukraine or end the war in the east of the country. He had made that clear from the beginning.
Selenskyj is in the whistleblower affair in an unfamiliar role
But now he is in a scandal that he does not really understand. Selenskyj owes him to US President Donald Trump. Basically, the two leaders are similar: Both have gone as outsiders in politics, both owe their choice to the annoyance of people who feel that they are not represented by the political elites, both do not necessarily like critical media.
Selenskyj had great hopes for Trump, who congratulated him first on the election. He wanted to visit him in the White House, explain to him his new policy for the people in his country, and set out plans for peace in the Donbass. The Ukrainian head of state wanted to expand the Normandy format of the four states Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, to include the US in order to increase pressure on Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
This was the stage that Selenskyj dreamed about. He wanted to stand side by side with Trump in the Oval Office, and send a message to Moscow.
Saul Loeb / AFP
President Volodymyr Selensky, Donald Trump:
But nothing has come of it to this day. Instead, Trump dragged him into his own power struggles before the US presidential election and thus on a stage on which the Ukrainian head of state never wanted to stand, and certainly not as an extra.
Almost every day there are new revelations to the so-called "Ukraine scandal". This name alone is already a problem for Selenskyj and his country: Because there is no Ukraine, but a Trump scandal, which will now end for the very same in a impeachment process.
Two Attorney Generals, a huge problem
Trump, that had to learn Selenskyj, is not interested in the future of his country, but only for what happened there years ago:
- for example, the publication of black money payments that put Trump's ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort in jail. The US president considers this move to the Ukrainian authorities as a blunder.
- and the dismissal of the then Ukrainian Attorney General in 2016, to which also Joe Biden urged in his capacity as Vice-President. In other words, a civil servant who was actually charged with investigating corruption against the owner of a Ukrainian gas company whose board was home to Biden's son Hunter.
But differently, as Trump wants to make believe, the public prosecutor did not determine correctly, but let the procedure fall asleep. For Trump's claim that Biden wanted to protect his son by dismissing the official, there is no evidence. Trump is less concerned with facts in all of this. He wants to incite conspiracy theories (read more about the background).
The Ukrainian president relies on Merkel and Macron
Although many Ukrainians generously overlooked how bad the published transcript of the telephone conversation between Trump and Selenskyj make the Ukrainian president.
Many understood that the policy newcomer Selenskyj wanted to please the US president, precisely because Ukraine is so dependent on US military and financial support. That the flattery but in revelry about Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron and their alleged lack of help for the Ukraine, then turned out less well.
Both are dependent on Selenskyj. The inexperienced politician needs the chancellor and the French president at his side if he wants to stand on stage next to Putin.
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Moreover, in the sixth year of fighting, the majority of Ukrainians are tired of war. They want the battles along the 400-kilometer-long front line in Donbass to finally stop. More than 13,000 people have been killed and more than two million people have left the region. At the same time there is a lot of suspicion that Selenskyj could collapse towards Russia.
At the beginning of October, he could not explain why he recognized the "Steinmeier Formula", named after the German ex-Foreign Minister and today's President, and what exactly this approval means for elections in Donetsk and Luhansk coupled with a future special status of the region. This brought Selensky in explanatory note: tens of thousands of people moved to the Maidan in Kiev, thousands more gathered in 20 other cities (read here five minutes of Ukrainians and their view on the conflict). And on Monday, protests are expected again.
In the Donbass conflict Ukraine can not count on US support
The pressure on Selenskyj is great - so great that he decided at short notice to talk to journalists on Thursday, with whom he otherwise reluctantly speaks. He set the frame. His stage: a table in a trendy market hall in Kiev, where he took place with at least eight journalists in succession for about 40 minutes, live broadcast on the Internet. For over 14 hours, he organized this press marathon and thus proved endurance.
SERGEY DOLZHENKO / EPA-EFE / REX
Selenskyj answered the questions of journalists for 14 hours
But again Trump caught up with him, especially the extra traveled US journalists wanted to learn more about the whistleblower affair. Selenskyj tried to parry her afterward with mostly very energetic, sometimes furious answers. He has nothing to do with the US election campaign, for him Ukraine and peace in Donbass are more important, he said.
Selenskyj can not bet on Trump. Lapidar had told the US President at their first meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly in late September, "I really hope you and President Putin come together and can solve your problem." As if it were only for Selenskyj to resolve this conflict. It is Moscow that has supported the pro-Russian separatists financially, militarily and organizationally for over five years.
In Moscow you will have taken note of Trump's statements. So far, one did not want to call an exact date for a Normandy meeting in the Kremlin. President Putin is very busy, it was said last.
