How war changed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Transcript

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. Now and then, in the affairs of nations, a celebrity entertainer becomes a prominent political leader - think Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eva Peron. In Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an unlikely transition from actor and comedian to president and is now one of the most recognizable heads of state in the world, known for his fearless leadership as his country fights to repel the Russian invasion. Our guest, Time magazine senior correspondent, Simon Shuster, is perhaps uniquely qualified to tell Zelenskyy's story. He was born in Moscow, the son of a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 6, and, after graduating from Stanford, he went into journalism. He's been reporting from Russia and Ukraine for 17 years for Reuters, the Associated Press and, since 2009, for Time.

His new book is a revealing look at Zelenskyy's life and career, drawn in significant part from Shuster's own time with Zelenskyy in the presidential compound in Kyiv and traveling with Zelenskyy to sites of combat and atrocities. Shuster also did extensive interviews with Zelenskyy's associates, allies, family and adversaries. His account is full of information and insights that were new to me. He finds that Zelenskyy's background as an entertainer was valuable training for his role in convincing Western leaders and their citizens to support Ukraine's fight for independence, and he writes that the war has changed Zelenskyy and his view of the world. Shuster's book is "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky." Simon Shuster, welcome back to FRESH AIR.

SIMON SHUSTER: Thank you so much. Great to be with you.

DAVIES: So tell us a little bit about Zelenskyy's background - where he grew up, what his childhood was like.

SHUSTER: He grew up in a very hard-scramble, rough, industrial city called Kryvyi Rih, in kind of eastern/southeastern Ukraine - Russian-speaking family, a Jewish family. And the city at the time - he was growing up in the '80s and '90s - was a very rough place. You know, it had a particularly difficult transition to capitalism from communism when the Soviet Union collapsed because it was a kind of one-factory town. The biggest employer by far was a metallurgical plant, which was, at one point, the largest in the Soviet Union. And there were a lot of gangs. There was a lot of alcoholism. There were a lot of, you know, street violence.

And President Zelenskyy managed to stay away from all that, you know, largely thanks to his family. His grandfather - paternal grandfather - Semyon Zelenskyy, was a high-ranking police official in the city. And his parents generally were very adamant about giving their only son a very good education, keeping him away from the streets, keeping him busy with activities like dancing, Greco-Roman wrestling they signed him up for - things like that. So it was a rough environment, but he had a pretty sheltered life at home.

DAVIES: Right, and was a cut-up and a comic for a lot of his childhood and into high school. It's also interesting that his father, who was a professor of cybernetics, worked in - at a plant in Mongolia - right? - for about 15 years for part of the year. So Zelenskyy had plenty of contact with Russian language and culture. He got into performing at a young age. How big a celebrity was he in Ukraine before he ran for president in 2019?

SHUSTER: Oh, enormous. I mean, he was one of the most famous entertainers in the country - also in Russia. You know, in both Ukraine and Russia - just one indicator - he was well-known for hosting the annual New Year's Eve comedy entertainment special. So, you know, that's usually a place reserved, in any country, for the biggest entertainer in the land. And indeed, he held that position. I mean, for - over the years, Ukrainians - millions of them - saw him mature into a TV producer, filmmaker, star of the screen and stage and, most importantly, I think the country's most important and influential political satirist. That's what he was known for - satirizing all the politicians in the country and really being a kind of conscience, in a sense, because he would, you know, point out their flaws - you know, lampooned them for their weaknesses. And that was, in many ways, as he saw it, as his team saw it, a way of reflecting public frustrations - of speaking for the people through his comedy.

DAVIES: He also, you write, was a very wealthy man by the time he was 30, and he took advantage of offshore tax shelters.

SHUSTER: Yeah, that's right. I mean, he's been pretty open about that over the years. He was easily a millionaire by the time he turned 30 - probably worth more than 10 million at that point - because he was extremely successful in the entertainment business. I mean, he was cranking out sitcoms, rom-coms, you know, reality TV shows. I mean, he was everywhere. You know, he was the envy of the TV and movie industry in Ukraine. His production company was the most successful, I think, up to that point, in the country.

So he did have quite a lot of money. And when he was asked about, you know, the use of offshore tax havens, particularly in Cyprus, which is famously a tax haven favored by the Russian and Ukrainian elites, he said, yeah, I did it. He denied using it to launder money or evade taxes. He said that he used those tax havens and offshore accounts to protect his wealth from political influence. He suggested that, you know, if his wealth was in Ukraine and Ukrainian banks, the ruling authorities, who he was making fun of on his comedy shows, could send the tax inspectors to take a hard look that those accounts. So that's how he explained, you know, the use of offshore bank accounts. That was sort of the excuse he gave for using those accounts over the years. But he has been very transparent about that.

DAVIES: People who don't follow this carefully might need to be reminded that, you know, from roughly 2004 until, you know, Zelenskyy ran for president, there was enormous turbulence in the country. You know, there were disputed elections and mass demonstrations and violence. And, of course, after 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, you know, a good chunk of the eastern part of the country was occupied by separatists and Russian soldiers pretending to be separatists. And so a big question, then, was, you know, whether the country should integrate with the West or pursue ties with Russia. Zelenskyy, because he - you know, he performed a lot in Russia, was on television in Russia, I guess, for a long time, kind of avoided taking sides. When did that begin to change?

SHUSTER: Yeah, longer than I - that was a surprising thing for me in reporting this book and going back, you know, deep into his history. He tried to stay on the sidelines even when, you know, there were revolutions and turmoil and real, you know, political crises over the question of - should Ukraine integrate with the West or stay aligned with Russia? He - part of the reason for that was, you know, as you noted, his business interest in Russia. About 80, 85% of his income as a movie-maker, as a TV producer came from the Russian market, which is, of course, the largest in the Russian-speaking world. All of his productions, all of his comedy, were in the Russian language. So they were geared toward not only, you know, Russian speakers and people in Ukraine, but also Russia and other former Soviet countries. So it was financially quite - there was a lot of pressure on him to maintain the Russian market, to not turn away from Russia in the business sense.

But that changed, really, in 2014 when the Russians first invaded Ukraine - when they first sent troops into the country to occupy and annex the region of Crimea. That really hurt Zelenskyy, as he - to use the word he chose to describe it. Crimea, to him, was as much a part of Ukraine as Kyiv, the capital. He'd performed in Crimea throughout his life. His family had a summer home there where they vacationed. And after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, he basically began winding down his businesses in Russia. Again, that cost him an enormous amount of money for his business. But he saw it as a matter of principle. He just - he said he physically couldn't imagine himself taking the stage with a smile on his face in Moscow after what the Russians had done in Crimea.

DAVIES: And, of course, he entertained Ukrainian troops on the front against the Russian separatists and Russian troops. And that also had an impact on him - is seeing those people who were putting their lives on the line. The process of running for president - you know, it seemed to coincide with him starting this new show called "Servant Of The People." You want to explain what that was and what got him into the idea that he should actually lead his country?

SHUSTER: Well, I'd pause before we get into "Servant Of The People" and those tours that he took to entertain the soldiers in the front. So after the annexation of Crimea, the Russians continued trying to seize more Ukrainian territory in the east, in the region called the Donbas. And a separatist war, a very vicious and violent war, broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014, in that summer. So Zelenskyy began touring with his comedy troupe to entertain the Ukrainian soldiers who were fighting that war.

At one point, there was an incident that was described to me by a close friend of his where the widow of a Ukrainian paratrooper came up to him at one of these concerts in the war zone and gave him the beret from her dead husband's uniform and said it should be a good luck charm for him to run for office. You know, this really planted the seeds, I think, of his political ambitions. And then right after that, you know, by the end of that same year - end of 2014, early 2015 - he began working on this sitcom, "Servant Of The People," which forced him to imagine himself in the role of the president. The sitcom is about a kind of history teacher, an everyman, a regular schmo who stumbles into the presidency, becomes president effectively by accident. And that really - you know, that show was on for about three years. It really forced Zelenskyy and everyone around him to imagine him as president.

DAVIES: We're going to take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Simon Schuster. He's a senior correspondent for time magazine. His new book is "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky." We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MATT ULERY'S "GAVE PROOF")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Time magazine's senior correspondent Simon Schuster. He's been reporting from Russia and Ukraine for 17 years. His new book is titled "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky."

So we were talking about - in 2019, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy began to run for president, he was on television in this sitcom called "Servant Of The People," where he played a guy who - kind of a history teacher who, by accident, becomes the president. One of the things that's remarkable about this that I didn't know until I read your book is that he was enormously popular, had big leads in polls over other politicians. In fact, he formed his own political party, which then won a majority in parliament, an absolute majority, which had never happened before in the short history of the country, I guess, but also that when he ran, his platform was pretty vague on some of the major questions of the day.

SHUSTER: Yeah, and that was on purpose. One of the people I interviewed for the book was his main campaign strategist in 2019 during the presidential elections. And he told me that their strategy was essentially to make Zelenskyy a blank slate, a kind of canvas onto which voters could project their ideas of the perfect president. The sitcom, which continued to air throughout the presidential campaign - indeed, the final season was made available on YouTube days before the first round of voting. So that was very much a part of his pitch to voters - like, this television program that showed an imaginary world where Zelenskyy plays this very humble, very good-hearted, very effective president.

And, you know, I think that was the primary pitch to voters in many ways, and it had a huge effect on them. But in terms of their program, you know, his campaign strategists and managers told me that they purposely tried to keep him out of the traditional arena of politics and to focus instead on entertainment, comedy, because the electorate was so divided. On issues of language, on issues of whether to integrate with Russia or the West, on all these really big issues, they didn't want to alienate one side of the electorate or the other. So they essentially kept things vague and allowed people to imagine the president they wanted in him.

DAVIES: Kind of amazing that you could skate across that kind of division. But it worked. And, you know, as I read about this, you know, a lot of comedians mock politicians. It's what they do. And they condemn their greed and their self-dealing. It's another to think that you could actually change the system to prevent all this and perform the functions of a government, which are challenging. Did he privately have a program of reform?

SHUSTER: Yes, but it was also very vague. I mean, the first time I met him and talked to him in detail about this was, again, March 2019, in the middle of his campaign. He's ahead in the polls. And I met him backstage of his comedy show, and we went after the show to his dressing room to talk. You know, and one thing that struck me was why he would want to transition into politics in the first place because his life, as I had just seen backstage of the show, was super-fun. I mean, he's surrounded by all his friends, you know, there's backup dancers. There's - you know, he's a movie star. He's surrounded by fans. He's adored by his audience. And I kind of suggested to him that his life was about to get a lot more complicated and a lot less fun if he were to win the presidency. He kind of brushed that off.

And - you know, and we talked about the issues. We talked about his plans for becoming president. And he was exceedingly vague. He basically was telling me, we'll figure it out. No matter what the issue, whether it's how to deal with then-President Donald Trump in the White House, how to negotiate a peace or some kind of better relationship with the Russians, he said, you know, we'll figure it out. Don't worry. If I don't know something, I'll hire professionals to help me understand it. That was essentially where he was. It's a fairly naive point of view to take when you're facing such grave challenges.

DAVIES: It was interesting to read that the famous phone call in which Trump - when Zelenskyy is asking for some weapons that the United States - that they hope to receive from the United States - and Trump says, well, yes, but we need you to do us a favor. The words that would ultimately launch the impeachment. And that when Zelenskyy finished the conversation, he regarded it as a success, right?

SHUSTER: Yes. Because if you read closely the White House transcript that was later released of that phone call, at the end, Trump promises to arrange a visit for Zelenskyy to the White House. And it's hard to overstate the importance of that kind of visit for any Ukrainian leader. The United States is by far the most important ally, not only because of relying on U.S. weapons but also for political support, diplomatic support, financial aid, loans. I mean, any incoming Ukrainian president - any Ukrainian president, period - needs to constantly demonstrate the strength of his or her relationship with the United States. So for Zelenskyy coming in, that was priority No. 1 in the international arena - to visit the White House, to sit there with the U.S. president, whoever it may be, and to demonstrate to the people back in Ukraine that, look, under my leadership, this relationship will continue to grow stronger, certainly won't grow weaker.

So that was what was going through Zelenskyy's mind for the most part at the time. And when, at the end of that phone call, Trump said, OK, sure, come on down to Washington and we'll arrange this visit, they saw that as quite an accomplishment. So when they put down the phone, as one of the participants on the Ukrainian side told me, there was some jubilation in the room on the Ukrainian side. And they actually went to a neighboring room, and they had some ice cream to celebrate - some waiters brought ice cream.

DAVIES: And, of course, the promised visit didn't actually happen - at least not then. And soon, you know, this was a huge issue. And Zelenskyy was seeing his messages with Trump and others appearing as evidence in this trial and all over the American media. What lesson did he draw from the experience?

SHUSTER: Yeah, I mean, I talked to a number of the people whose messages wound up, you know, projected onto the big screens in the hearing rooms during the impeachment inquiry in Congress. And imagine what that feels like. You're a state official in Ukraine. You're having confidential, classified conversations with your counterparts in the United States. You're assuming that those conversations, text messages, emails are going to remain private. And then you turn on CNN, and you see your messages projected onto the screen for the world to see. That was very humiliating. It was very demeaning. In many cases, the U.S. authorities did not consult with the Ukrainians before publishing those communications. So that was quite annoying. One close adviser to Zelenskyy called it a cold shower. That was one of the milder phrases used to describe that experience.

And in the middle of the impeachment hearings, I sat down with President Zelenskyy in his office for one of our interviews that is described in the book, and it was maybe one of the lowest points that I'd seen him. He was at the time preparing also simultaneously for his first sit-down negotiations with Vladimir Putin. The goals of those negotiations were to end the separatist conflict in the East and prevent the kind of invasion that we later saw play out across Ukraine. So he had a lot to juggle. And, you know, while he was focused on trying to negotiate with Putin and settle their relations and bring peace, all the American media and all the international media wanted to talk about was Rudy Giuliani, you know, Hunter Biden and all this stuff.

DAVIES: You write that when he came into office, Zelenskyy very much wanted to have a relationship with Donald Trump, wanted to visit the United States because he needed weapons in the war against the Russian separatists. And he actually asked you what kind of guy Trump was like. What was going on here?

SHUSTER: Yeah, that was actually on the campaign trail - I mean, another sign of his pretty deep naivete about what international politics is like. Yeah, he asked me, you know - as if American journalists all have some kind of insight on the matter - what's Trump like? Is he a normal guy? And, you know, I stuttered and stammered for a minute because I didn't know quite how to explain to him, you know, who Trump is. By that point, it was absolutely clear the position that then-President Trump took toward Ukraine. He had, by then, expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin. He had, by then, undermined the NATO alliance. And it was pretty clear that he had every intention of throwing Ukraine under the bus.

But President Zelenskyy, I think, had fairly high confidence in his ability to charm and break the ice with Trump, partly because of their shared - some shared elements of their background. So Trump was a reality TV celebrity, right? Zelenskyy also came from the world of television. And more importantly, I think their status is outsiders to politics. Both of them ran on these campaigns of I'm going to come in. I'm going to breathe new life into the system. I'm going to clear the swamp - right? - drain the swamp. So he thought he could connect with Trump on that level and was very quickly disappointed.

DAVIES: Let's take another break here. We are speaking with Simon Shuster. He is a senior correspondent for Time magazine. His new book is "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky." He'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF FRED HERSCH'S "RIDDLE SONG")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. We're speaking with Time magazine senior correspondent, Simon Shuster. He's been reporting from Russia and Ukraine for 17 years. His new book about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is based on his extensive coverage of the war with Russia and Shuster's time with Zelenskyy in the presidential compound in Kyiv and his travels with him around his war-torn country. Shuster also conducted countless interviews with political and military leaders in Ukraine, as well as with Zelenskyy's advisers, allies, adversaries and his family. His book is "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky."

So the Russian invasion occurred in February 2022. And, you know, it's been widely reported that while the United States was warning that an invasion would happen and sharing intelligence with the Ukrainians that indeed it would occur - that Zelenskyy himself didn't really think it would happen. Is that really true, based on your reporting?

SHUSTER: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think that comes across most starkly in my interviews with the first lady, where she describes, you know, waking up the morning of the invasion and being totally shocked by it. She didn't have a suitcase packed. She didn't have her documents together. You know, that shows you the extent to which, you know, even in his private life, he wasn't warning the people he loved most that this invasion was coming simply because he didn't believe that it would come right up to his home in Kyiv - that it would attack the capital first.

DAVIES: You know, one of the things Zelenskyy did was to insist on getting out of Kyiv from time to time to get into the field and, in particular, visiting the town of Bucha, which was an affluent community, I gather, which had been occupied by the Russians. And when they left, horrific atrocities were revealed. How did Zelenskyy react to this, and how did he present these tragedies to the West?

SHUSTER: I mean, on a personal level, it was absolutely devastating to him. He, I think, to an extent that surprised me, really takes the suffering of civilians close to the heart. He doesn't see them as some kind of abstract mass, you know, sacrificing for the nation. He really feels the pain of individual victims of this war. So that day, when he went to Bucha and he saw the atrocities committed there - you know, hundreds of civilians massacred, some tortured - you know, it was just the worst kinds of scenes you could imagine at wartime - he was deeply affected by that emotionally. He later described it as the worst day of that tragic year. And he said it taught him that the devil is not far away - not some figment of our imagination - but he's right here on this Earth. And he said he saw the work of the devil there in Bucha.

But, the next phase - you know, when he sort of took in that pain, he moved on to the next stage of the war. He still had a war to fight. And, you know, he invited the media to visit Bucha - to see him in Bucha. And he began inviting his international partners and allies - Europeans, Americans from all over the world. Every time they made a visit to President Zelenskyy in Kyiv, he encouraged them to visit Bucha to see it for themselves. And as one of the people - a close friend and ally of Zelenskyy, who sort of guided the foreign visitors on these trips, he said it caused a really important and fundamental change in their psyches. They saw the atrocities for themselves, and it would encourage them to maintain a much higher level of support when they went back home to their capitals after having seen up close the mass graves and the real evidence of Russian war crimes.

DAVIES: I was just going to ask - I mean, this - some days or weeks had passed since the Russians had left when these foreign leaders and journalists would come, and Zelenskyy would make sure that they went to Bucha. What would they see that was so disturbing and important?

SHUSTER: They would see bodies. You know, in the first days, there were war crimes investigators and other prosecutors and police officials working around mass graves, working around torture chambers. You know, that's one thing I saw when I went there. Yeah, there was a mass grave in the churchyard - in the yard of the main church there in Bucha. I also visited a summer camp for children that the Russians had turned into a garrison. And in one of the basements beneath a dormitory where children would usually sleep in the summertime during these summer camp sessions, the Russians had created a set of torture chambers and a room for executions.

So these are the kinds of things that one could go and see at the time. I mean, now, Bucha has recovered to a large extent. But at the time that all these foreign visitors were coming, all these journalists were coming, all these things were everywhere. You didn't need a guide to go and show you. You know, as the priest in the church there where the mass grave was located - the priest told me, just go look around. Go take a drive around, and it won't be difficult for you to find the scars of this occupation.

DAVIES: One of the things that struck me about your book was how energetically - while Zelenskyy was pursuing the war effort, insisting on getting more weapons and assistance from the West - he was very actively trying to pursue negotiations with the Russians. And this was not new. I mean, when he was elected in 2019, you know, the country was essentially already at war with Russia through its occupation of Crimea and these - eastern part of the country - the Donbas. What kinds of concessions was he willing to make, both then and after the Russian invasion, in order to get peace?

SHUSTER: Yeah. One of the things that really surprised me in reporting the book and being there when these negotiations were playing out, talking to the people involved, was just how long they continued the negotiations even after the atrocities were revealed in Bucha. You know, even after many of Zelenskyy's own advisers told him, like, these - we can't go on with these negotiations. We can't talk to these monsters after what they've done to us - Zelenskyy would continue insisting that, no, even though, you know, this is a genocidal war, we need to continue trying to find peace at the negotiating table.

So they did offer a series of concessions - very serious ones. One of them - the main one - was this idea of permanent neutrality. So Ukraine would agree to give up its ambition of joining the NATO alliance. This was one of the main excuses that Vladimir Putin used to justify this horrific invasion - that he wanted to stop NATO from admitting Ukraine - not that NATO had any plans to admit Ukraine anytime soon, but this was kind of one of the paranoid risks that Putin pointed to. So Zelenskyy said, all right, if that's what you're afraid of, we will make a formal commitment to remain neutral. He even agreed that any military exercises that involve foreign troops on the territory of Ukraine would not happen without Russian approval if Russia saw those exercises as a risk. So he was willing to really go far in granting concessions early in the invasion.

And, you know, those negotiations gradually broke apart. One of the reasons was Bucha and the atrocities uncovered. But I think also what we saw was that in April, just to summarize very briefly, there were a series of victories that Ukraine achieved on the battlefield that convinced Zelenskyy that, hey, maybe we should see how far we can push this militarily while we have the momentum. Maybe we don't need to negotiate right now. Maybe we fight first, push the Russians back, and then potentially negotiate from a position of strength.

DAVIES: You know, you mentioned that, you know, he grew up in a Russian-speaking family. The city he grew up in was in kind of that part of the country where Russian was widely spoken. He worked in Russia. He was a television star in Moscow. And, you know, before the invasion, when he was trying to negotiate an end to the conflict with Russia in eastern Ukraine, he actually met with Putin in December 2019. What was his attitude towards Putin and the Russians at the time?

SHUSTER: Well, he believed in himself. He believed in his abilities as a communicator, in his abilities as a negotiator. And he believed that he could make peace with the Russians from the first days in office. You know, in his inaugural speech in May 2019, he promised the people of Ukraine that he would bring peace with the Russians. He would resolve this war in eastern Ukraine and the Donbas. And when he sat down with Putin, he was disappointed. You know, the book describes in some detail both his preparations for those talks and the ways, you know, behind closed doors that he tried to break the ice with Putin, to find some humanity in him, some pragmatism that he could turn in his favor.

And what he confronted there at the negotiating table was a man made of ice and grievances. You know, Putin was not having it. He was not interested in believing that Zelenskyy marked some, you know, new turn in Ukrainian politics. He continued - Putin continued to believe that Zelenskyy was just another puppet of the West, and he brought with him to the negotiating table all of the old grievances and grudges that had formed his position on Ukraine. He didn't really give Zelenskyy a shot, so those talks didn't go far.

DAVIES: We are speaking with Simon Shuster. He's a senior correspondent for Time magazine. His new book is "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky." We'll continue our conversation after this short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JULIAN LAGE'S "IOWA TAKEN")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Time magazine's senior correspondent Simon Shuster, who has been reporting for many years from Russia and Ukraine. He has a new book about the president of Ukraine. It's titled "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky." You know, as the war dragged on, it eventually would fade from the headlines, and Zelenskyy and his aides saw this as a problem. How did they respond to the fact that at some point, you know, they weren't the world's leading issue? I mean, today Gaza is dominating the headlines.

SHUSTER: This has been a crucial challenge for Zelenskyy from the early days. I was surprised to the extent to which he was aware of this kind of attention-span challenge from early in the invasion. In our first conversation after the invasion started, you know, he said, sooner or later - people see this war on Instagram, and sooner or later, they will scroll away. That's how he put it. In a later conversation later in the invasion, he had begun to feel this sense of distraction in the West, among his allies and among the people, the - his audience broadly, meaning all of us, the entire world. He began to feel that sense of fatigue and a loss of interest. And he said that people had started acting as if they were watching a rerun for the 10th time, and they were beginning to change the channel. So he always saw it as his mission to maintain that attention, to keep people from turning away.

How did he do that? I mean, you know, many strategies - it's difficult to summarize, you know, all the approaches he took. But what I remember hearing from a lot of his aides in these planning sessions and meetings that they would have there in Kyiv in the presidential compound, he would say, you know, we need a move. This was a line that he used to use in the writers' room in his comedy shows. And at that time, in the old days, he would mean, we need a plot twist to surprise the audience, something new to get their - to keep them watching. In the context of the invasion, he would use the same phrase, but he would mean, we need a victory. We need something to show people that we are winning, we're capable of winning. And often his military tactical decisions were guided by a desire to have these demonstrative victories, something that could really grab the world's attention, whether it's, you know, bombing the bridge that connects Russia to Crimea or, you know, various battles and allocations of military resources to battles that maybe were not strategically the most important, but they were dramatic. They would look - they make it look like Ukraine really has a shot at winning, that it's continuing to win. That's basically been his strategy for keeping our attention.

DAVIES: You know, you wrote recently about President Zelenskyy's trip to the United States just this past November, when, you know, it - in a way, a sort of military stalemate has taken over at least the front lines in the war. I mean, the Ukrainians are still attacking Russian infrastructure with drones and other weapons, but it's getting more difficult. What was his experience coming to the United States this time as opposed to his earlier visits?

SHUSTER: Well, I think it's enlightening to compare the two. His first visit during the invasion was right before Christmas 2022, at the end of the first full year of the invasion. And there, he was, you know, greeted like a hero - like a war hero. On Capitol Hill, he gave a speech to the joint session of Congress. He met with Joe and Jill Biden in the Oval Office, and he really was touted as this great war hero. When he came back in the end of September of 2023, it was a different atmosphere. By that point, the Republicans had really begun to resist additional aid packages to Ukraine. He was not allowed to give a speech to the joint sessions of Congress. Instead, he met them behind closed doors and had a fairly contentious conversation where, you know, the American lawmakers grilled him about - how is this war going to end? Where is this going? Where is all this support leading to? Give - you know, give us your sense of the endgame here. And that was a difficult conversation.

I think, coming out of that trip, you know, there were a lot of concerns among him and his allies that - in Kyiv, his political allies - that, you know, they need to reinvigorate the support from the West. And I think they haven't quite found a way to do it yet. You know, the military victories have been there. You know, there have been a lot of victories in the Black Sea in terms of destroying Russian naval ships and pushing the navy out of the Black Sea. There have been other, you know, high points militarily, but nothing like the dramatic victories that we were seeing in 2022 that really made the world believe that the most likely outcome of this war would be a Russian defeat.

Now that's not so clear. As Ukrainian military commanders have said, the front line now looks like a stalemate. And, you know, we're in the point in the war when President Zelenskyy and his aides are having to adjust their strategy, having to shift to a new strategy and adjust their message also. Their message of promising, you know, total and complete victory is beginning to seem untenable even to, you know, many military leaders in Ukraine.

DAVIES: You write about how he had some conflicts with military leaders in part over what approach to take and that some of his motivation was to try and generate victories that would maximize support in the West. I wonder if - you know, there are cases we've seen in other wars where political leaders, when they get desperate, try and make military decisions that are completely unrealistic. Are you seeing this with Zelenskyy?

SHUSTER: I mean, the general trend - the evolution that you see in the book is that when the invasion starts, Zelenskyy leaves the fighting to the generals. He trusts them. He admires them enormously and is very grateful to them for their ability to stop the Russians at the gates of Kyiv and indeed start pushing them back. But over time, what we see is Zelenskyy begins to become more and more confident in his own decision-making abilities as a military commander. He begins to form his own priorities about what is most important on the battlefield, where to attack, when to attack. And as I said, you know, a little earlier, you know, his military decisions often had to do with - where can we demonstrate a victory? Where can we show a big success?

And often the military generals were more focused on a kind of methodical, slow, plodding push, you know, toward the front lines in the South. This has been their main objective, their main priority. And there were some disagreements. You know, that seems pretty natural. The book lays out certain important decisions where they disagreed and indeed, you know, at least one occasion where President Zelenskyy pulled rank and overruled the generals. And, you know, I think it's up to historians and military analysts to judge whether his decisions were sound. I think there's good arguments on both sides. But yeah, there were definitely cases - you know, by the end of the first year of the invasion, he was confident enough to begin telling the generals really what to do, even on the battlefield.

DAVIES: We're going to take another break here. We are speaking with Simon Shuster. He's a senior correspondent for Time magazine. His new book is "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky." We'll continue our conversation after this break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Time magazine senior correspondent Simon Shuster. He's been reporting from Russia and Ukraine for 17 years. His new book is "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky." You've known Zelenskyy for quite a long time now. Is he a different man now?

SHUSTER: Yeah, I'd say he's almost unrecognizable when you compare the Zelenskyy I met - you know, this happy-go-lucky, optimistic, somewhat naive character that I met backstage of his comedy show in 2019 when he was just running for office - and the man I met recently a few months ago in Kyiv, and we traveled together to Odessa on his train. I mean, nowadays he's just - he's made of steel. He's - he never stops. There's very little joking, banter, small talk. He's, you know, all business all the time. What is the next thing we're doing? What's the next thing on the agenda? He pushes himself very hard, and he pushes his team very hard, you know, to the point of exhaustion on many occasions.

And he's - there's just a toughness in a certain darkness about him now that really didn't exist before. He's still extremely committed to this war, to winning this war, to meeting his promise to the people of Ukraine that victory is coming. And he's very single-minded, almost obsessive in pursuing that goal. And, you know, I don't know. A lot of his aides also question whether he can - whether the military can deliver the things he's promised, up to and including returning all the occupied territories - Crimea, the Donbas, everything. It's not clear. But that is the the goal that Zelenskyy sticks to. And he's not changing his mind.

DAVIES: You know, you've spent so much time in Ukraine. You have ancestors from Ukraine, your father. You were a journalist, which certainly requires a measure of detachment as you do your reporting. How painful is it to you to see what this country is going through?

SHUSTER: Deeply painful, deeply personal. I mean, I have a lot of family in Odessa. My uncle there is a trauma surgeon, so he's been operating on soldiers since the early days of the invasion. My aunt, my cousin and my niece - they evacuated as refugees early in the invasion to Prague. So, you know, all these things were going on on a personal level, on a family level with me while I was doing the reporting. So, of course, as a journalist, you have to be very disciplined about maintaining objectivity. That's always the ideal you strive toward. But, of course, I feel deeply for the Ukrainian people. I feel I am Ukrainian in a sense because my family history. So, you know, I think I managed to remain clear-eyed in my assessments of the war and President Zelenskyy and his team. But, of course, you know, inside, you know, I was dealing with the pain of this war every day.

DAVIES: I guess I should ask you how you see this developing. What future is there for this war, for this country?

SHUSTER: I try to steer clear when I can of prognostication, but, you know, I can say this. President Zelenskyy and his team have a clear vision of where this goes next. One thing I'll say is, you know, the idea that they are against negotiation or against peace talks is not true. They have been developing the kind of architecture for peace talks for a long time, since the end of 2022, really. One of Zelenskyy's closest aides has overseen a series of negotiations, is trying to build a coalition that can then invite Russia to the table and try to settle the war through negotiations, through talks. So that is an ongoing process. I think we're going to see that play out in the coming months.

But another important factor here is Ukraine is also developing ways to sustain the war even if Western support continues to decline. They are really investing heavily in domestic weapons production. And my next report in Time magazine is going to look at that very closely. You know, they're very realistic about the possibility of, for example, Donald Trump winning the elections later this year and becoming president as he's promised to cut off aid. So they have developed ways and are actively developing ways to sustain the fight, not to be pushed into a capitulation or a negotiation that they don't want to participate in and to continue fighting on their own resources, their own weapons. So that's also a factor that I think we can't discount as we look at where this war is headed.

DAVIES: Well, Simon Schuster, thank you so much for speaking with us.

SHUSTER: Thank you.

DAVIES: Simon Schuster is a senior correspondent for Time magazine. His new book is "The Showman: Inside The Invasion That Shook The World And Made A Leader Of Volodymyr Zelensky." On tomorrow's show, our guest is award-winning actress and producer Tracee Ellis Ross. She co-stars in two new films, the satirical movie "American Fiction" and the thriller "Cold Copy," which explores the boundaries of journalistic integrity. We'll talk about her career and growing up as the daughter of Diana Ross. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @NPRFreshAir.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED NASH'S "WATER IN CUPPED HANDS (AUNG SAN SUU KYI)")

DAVIES: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Ann Marie Baldonado, Therese Madden, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED NASH'S "WATER IN CUPPED HANDS (AUNG SAN SUU KYI)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.