Original subtitles

KNOCKING

Hello? Good morning, Mr Holoborodko.

Can I connect you with Angela Merkel?

Yes, you can connect.

NEWS ANCHOR: An actor, known for his TV role

as President of Ukraine,

is now set to take over that position in real life.

He was extraordinarily popular.

He impressed immediately, like, "Wow!"

He played the kind of character

that Ukraine was dreaming about.

Ukraine is a place where the destiny

of this century will be hammered out.

EXPLOSION

We're going to be surrounded

within 40 minutes or so.

This is a threat to democracy

for the world.

Imagine, imagine being in that situation.

I think it's the President

who can really tell this story.

CHEERING

Nothing could dampen the sheer exuberance

that welcomed in the 1990s, as an explosion of colour and sound

released the pent-up emotions of the past decade.

The most evocative symbol of

the divide between East and West,

the Berlin Wall, is open

to East Germans to walk through.

Vladimir Putin watched the fall of the Berlin Wall with horror.

When the Soviet Union collapsed,

the kind of...the security guys,

the power guys, the spook guys were on the back foot.

By this point, Putin's a mid-ranking KGB spy,

working undercover in communist East Germany.

And as demonstrators were trying to storm the Stasi building...

..he called Moscow for instruction, and he said Moscow was silent.

Boris Yeltsin had come to bury the Soviet Union

and to build the new Commonwealth.

This will not be a single state,

rather, a collection of independent countries.

The Soviet Union had ceased to exist.

Many people here find it hard to trust the Russians.

They blame them for years of suppression of

the Ukrainian culture, and they're worried that

Russia may not accept the Ukraine as an equal partner.

While Putin is fuming back in Russia,

a teenager called Volodymyr Zelensky

is coming of age in the new Ukraine.

Hello. Hello. Mr President, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Thank you very much, yes.

My colleagues. Yeah.

Hi. Hi.

Through this mirror, can you see me? I see your face.

If you could go back to

the 16-year-old Volodymyr...

16? 16.

..and tell him that he would become President...?

When I was 16, no.

No. But it's not...

Of course, of course I had another dream,

another view of my life, of future.

Really, I think that people who are 16,

they don't think about future, they think about today, really.

And today, when I was 16,

I was not thinking about any politics, any mission.

Your future is next week. That is your closest dream, your...

Something like this.

What WERE your dreams?

I was very free.

It's the end of Soviet Union.

Young people, what they want?

They want to be free, they wanted to see the planet.

And to go where? Everywhere.

Just for some dreams.

You just want to meet, speak,

and your eyes are big.

And, of course, I wanted to find me in this big world.

Of course, my parents wanted me to be, you know, er, calm,

to be calm, yes, and to study, and that's it.

I found time for everything.

Freedom, it's a great thing, freedom.

It's an amazing journey.

Zelensky, he came from

eastern part of Ukraine,

industrialised and, you know, heavily populated.

The new generation

wanted to become a new,

successful Eastern European country.

I love my city. It's not capital,

and it's, like, what do you love?

You love people who are around you,

so people, girls, boys who are from your childhood.

Thank you.

Uh, did you order a coffee?

No, whisky! Ah!

Friendship.

I loved my city because my childhood was there,

because my friends been there, near me.

Great time.

We had nothing, but we had everything.

I saw him...

We had an English lesson in my class,

and the teach...it was speaking.

And she went off, and she returned in five minutes

with two very young kids. It was a very, very tall girl

and a very, very small boy.

And teacher said,

"Speak on this topic - London.

"Volo, show them how to do that."

And he started like, "London is the capital of Great Britain,

"situated on the River Thames," and I was really shocked because...

..his voice didn't fit to his size, because he was really small.

Day by day, gradually, we became friends.

I didn't know Volodymyr yet,

but his father, um, study...was a teacher.

I teach technology in the '90s.

He was very charismatic and very funny.

And all students,

we know that he is very honest.

Zelensky inherited from his father principles.

And on the other hand is his mother.

Humble, very loving Jewish woman.

Long hair.

Guitar, long hair.

Rings, earrings,

something rock and roll.

Were you cool?

I think...

I think...

You have to ask my wife, of course.

But, but...I think, yes.

He was cool, yeah.

So, he was a little bit of a troublemaker?

He was always.

Really? Yeah.

Is that what you found attractive?

Um, being honest, no.

So, when did romance start?

One of the best, I think, moments in my life, when I met my wife.

I just looked at her and I think I just loved, and that's it.

I saw her at school.

When we began to speak,

when I understood who is she,

and I hope she understood who am I...

Did that take some time?

For me or for her? For her.

Sorry!

I don't know.

I saw Volodymyr the first time like an actor.

Volodymyr, with his friends,

took part in a competition.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And I remember, "Best actor is...Volodymyr Zelensky!"

"Me? Me?" And, "Yes. Yes, you!"

His eyes, it was like big plate.

After that, he believe in himself.

You know, when the universe,

er, priznayut, recognised you.

He was very good comedian,

and we were big fans of KVN.

This show, KVN,

was legendary in the Soviet times.

If I tried to describe it to you,

it would be kind of televised competition of stand-up comedians.

It gained an extraordinary,

enormous popularity.

We decided to make our own team.

You have to improvise.

You have to show things that you've been rehearsing. The main thing,

it have to be funny.

I was on the jury.

Oh, he impressed immediately,

because he was making fun of everything.

Hello...

I remember, he makes a joke on...and very rude jokes

on the President.

"SOS, America, SOS".

In Russian, er, he's speaking,

it sounds like "suck me".

Suck me? Yes!

The show, for many young people,

was the only platform for irony

and, sometimes, even satire.

And that's why it was absolutely unexpected for Russian viewers.

I believe they managed to make

the only political satire

in the former Soviet Union.

Clever.

THEY SING

We loved him immediately.

And basically, he won

this Ukrainian league of KVN.

And he was invited to do, with his team, the run for Russian league.

That was, in that time, considered to be the kind of Premier League.

Moscow League, they show you

on TV, on primetime.

It was the top.

There's nothing higher than that.

CHEERING

At the same time that Zelensky discovered that

his entertainment skills could win an audience, Vladimir Putin

had discovered that his gifts for

surviving had taken him to the point

where Boris Yeltsin made him

Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

He was made Yeltsin's heir.

Mr Yeltsin now has named him as

his chosen candidate in next year's

race for the presidency.

Mr Putin's task will be to build up his own support

and destroy Mr Yeltsin's political opponents.

Putin coming to that, why would he have done that?

You know, to use the...

I would say to exploit the popularity of the show.

SINGING

This show has an extraordinary, enormous popularity.

He used this chance to be seen

able to smile, to laugh,

and there were a few jokes about him.

He said, "We're going to Kyiv

"to start our own company."

He was always saying kind of, "Let's do it. We'll succeed."

What was Volodymyr Zelensky's role

in all this?

I'm a big fan of basketball... Mm-hm.

..and I can compare it to

Michael Jordan in Chicago Bulls.

They won everything because of him.

He's a kind of locomotive

that pulls the train.

Not only frontman on the stage,

he's main writer, chief editor,

he made decisions in finances,

he was a leader in everything.

And I always trusted him because

I believe that he has his lucky star

that leads him, that helps him.

Putin's first visit as President

was meeting the Prime Minister

and for talks in Number Ten.

We're just doing to go right down here...

We are beginning to build up what looks like a useful relationship.

Prime Minister, how are you? Thanks so much. Not at all.

Really great. Really enjoyed it. Glad you enjoyed it, thank you.

Putin, you could see he was trying to put on the charm.

Putin was very controlled,

would occasionally try to show a bit of humour.

Language is already pre-set.

Er, Russian is on channel three.

Next time, make sure that the Russian is on channel one.

LAUGHTER

The thing that struck all of us about Putin

was his eyes - very small, rather cold.

We were asking ourselves

if he was for real about wanting to build up relations with the West.

All went pretty well and was very

constructive, except for one moment.

Right.

Er, one last question, I think, is all we've got time for, so...

I wanted to ask President Putin that there are many concerns

in Britain and elsewhere about the conduct of the war in Chechnya.

How does he propose to show people in the Western world

that those fears are misplaced?

Putin became highly emotional,

almost paranoid.

He really couldn't discuss it in any kind of rational way.

And I would discover,

talking to Putin's staff,

that he wouldn't just do this with

foreigners. They would say to me,

"Look, it's impossible to talk to him, he just gets angry."

After the 2004 election,

Putin became a much more confident,

much more assertive individual,

and unpleasant things started happening.

In Ukraine, mysteriously,

a pro-Western candidate for election was poisoned.

NEWS ANCHOR: Now, more on this

developing story about the poisoning

of one of the presidential candidates in Ukraine.

Viktor Yushchenko has claimed

he was poisoned by his political enemies.

Nobody knows who did it,

but it looked a little bit like a KGB operation.

The Russian intelligence services

have a well-known, long history of

poisoning people they do not like.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

With that particular show,

Zelensky has become

extraordinarily popular in Ukraine.

So he set up his own company with his partners,

and he started to produce more and more shows.

And the only step left for him not exploited and not explored,

that was movies.

Volodymyr said, "Sometime,

"I will be on Oscars stage,

"and all audience will applause to us,

"to us and our job, our work."

LOUD BUBBLING

Ah, Russia!

His movies were

extraordinarily popular

in Ukraine, but also, in Russia...

..with millions of people watching.

What can you have more

in that particular moment? What could be more? Nothing.

But, you know, as always in life, that was something between

the complete dramatic change,

turn of the circumstances,

and so it turned out to be

the end of the whole epoch.

Boris Yeltsin's funeral

was a symbolic moment for Russia...

..marking the transition from one order to another.

By this stage, it was Putin's Russia.

At Yeltsin's funeral,

very significantly, we see Viktor Yanukovych.

He is the Ukrainian that Vladimir Putin wishes to have in power.

It was absolutely critical, from Putin's point of view,

that he should control Ukraine.

Without Yanukovych,

Zelensky might have never left

the world of entertainment.

In Ukraine, Yanukovych was practically...

..the boss of the organised crime group,

not even trying to hide it!

I met him.

Yanukovych was always a bandit.

He was a typical, you know,

considered to be a typical criminal.

Putin eventually got his wish,

and Yanukovych became President of Ukraine in 2010.

Soon after he became President,

Ukraine was being plundered by Yanukovych and his friends.

On the outskirts of Kyiv,

he builds a naff estate,

with a pirate galleon and a zoo.

He had turned Ukraine

into a laughing stock.

He looted the state, he made his dentist son a billionaire,

and he jailed his main opponents.

Mr Yanukovych denies allegations

of embezzling state funds,

or of hiding millions of dollars

in foreign bank accounts.

Ukraine has been pretty badly governed since 1990,

but it's always had freedom of expression.

And one could see younger people

who wanted Ukraine to be a more honest,

better governed, more European country,

and Zelensky is the embodiment of it.

They're not against Russia,

but they were pro becoming part of Europe and the European Union.

The turning point was when

Yanukovych tore up an agreement with the European Union -

which was basically a symbol,

a sign that Ukraine was integrating with the West -

and accepted a bail-out from Vladimir Putin and Russia.

Erm, and there were protests.

CHANTING

NEWS REPORTER: People have come

throughout the day, surging out of

the Metro with European Union flags

with the national flag of Ukraine,

and they are rallying in the centre of this square.

CHEERING

Yanukovych was under a great deal of pressure to clear the square.

He was getting clear signals

from Moscow, from the Kremlin,

to put down the rebellion,

and it led to a series of

increasingly violent clashes with police.

REPORTER: This is a scene of absolute chaos.

The police are throwing stun...

EXPLOSION

There is total... EXPLOSION

This is a major political crisis in Ukraine.

The Maidan Revolution,

what impact did those events

have on you, personally?

A lot.

I think all of us - I mean, about our group -

we thought, how to help this situation?

We didn't think about any, you know,

political future, or something. It's not ambition.

It's not my ambitions, in those times, without any thoughts.

You... You...had to make a choice.

What is the price of your life? Yes.

In the car, going there, did you plan what to say,

or was it just spontaneous?

I planned. I...

First of all, we are honest.

We decided at the very beginning of our dialogue. Please! Yes. All...

All... All which is spontaneous,

you...you have to prepare something.

I drived to the studio,

of course, I thought, what I have to say?

I have to address to everybody I can.

You feel that you can help now,

and you want just to address something to help with something.

What I had, I said.

I understood that if, of course, I was popular,

it was important because my messages would be not only to Ukraine,

also, to Russia, I was very popular in Russia.

It's stunning,

because he - already, in 2014 -

is talking to Putin as an equal.

That's the moment when the comedian

stopped joking and became serious.

REPORTER: This CCTV footage

appears to show Mr Yanukovych's

entourage fleeing by helicopter.

The former President's current whereabouts are a mystery.

Putin's man in Ukraine, Yanukovych,

has been ousted by a democratic protest.

So this is a humiliation for Putin and, at this stage,

Putin feels he has got to do something to get his own back...

..so he goes for Crimea.

REPORTER: A platoon of troops deployed this morning around

the main airport in Crimea.

This is sovereign Ukrainian territory.

These were not Ukrainian troops.

Then he did a second thing.

He sent troops into

Donetsk and Luhansk,

eastern provinces of Ukraine,

and he started a war

in those two provinces.

Putin claimed, "We are not ourselves fighting in those regions,"

but it was entirely obvious

to the world, they were.

Many people inside of Ukraine

cut off the ties with Russia,

and most important challenge was for Zelensky.

Zelensky needed to choose between

the Russian prospects of business

and Ukrainian identity.

Can you work? Can you...

Can you sell products to Russia?

When you have company, a lot of people, they need work

and they need job, and business between a lot of...

But you have to choose.

So the decision was, we stop.

We will stop all the relations.

So we closed the offices, and we...

That's it. That's it.

And all of us, we wanted to change our work. I mean, this...

Now, this, to do some more movies or TV programmes,

so documentary and dramas, something new for Ukraine.

And then came Servant of the People.

The premise is quite simple.

You have an everyman -

a school teacher,

who is fed up with corruption

and misrule in Ukraine, and is

talking to his sort of

secondary school students,

and starts ranting about the state of the country.

One of his students films it on a phone, posts it online

and this thing goes viral.

He goes from being an ordinary guy

to running a country.

Zelensky was an actor, but he was telling them something true about

the society in which they live, where there was impunity

for the rich, where politicians routinely stole.

So you see these oligarchs - sometimes, faceless -

around the table, saying they can control Zelensky

and, of course, Zelensky doesn't go according to their script.

We always had a President

that we wanted to change.

At first, we kind of liked them,

and in a year, we wanted to change them.

And he played the kind of character

that Ukraine was dreaming about.

What's so delightful about the show

is that it blurs fiction and reality.

So much of it was actually shot in Mezhyhirya,

which was Yanukovych's play palace, on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Servant of the People has expressed

the willingness of Ukrainians,

you know, to start the newer life, really new life.

Not with the people from the past.

It made people believe

that change is possible.

He became even more popular

because of the Servant of the People.

He was Paddington.

By the summer of 2018,

he was one of the most popular people in Ukraine.

I remember that the rumours started to fly around.

In different TV shows,

in internet and YouTube,

they started to talk about

Zelensky taking part in elections.

And we were thinking, "So what is that, it's kind of a joke?"

And, of course, we ask him what it's all about.

He was answering in, like, in jokes.

But day by day, month by month,

it was more obvious

that it's not a joke.

That something going to happen.

So your husband made a public announcement

that he was running for President, and he hadn't told you?

Weren't you...? THEY LAUGH

What did you say to him?

And more important, what did he say to you? What was his excuse?

She was honest, that's why she was angry.

And I think that, er...

She's smart, and I think she knew about it.

Not from me, but she understood everything before.

Of course, she understood, I think so.

But she was not ready to, you know, to recognise it

and to hear it. She was afraid, because new challenges,

now we see that she was right, a lot of challenges.

Yes, and I...

I did everything oppositely, so I'm...I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I... I...

I can tell now, "Sorry, my love, I'm so sorry, yes." Um...

Yes, difficult decision.

But she understood that I couldn't do other way.

It's the decision of your life.

You... You made this choice,

and if she had opportunity

to change my mind,

I think she couldn't do it.

He's named his political party

Servant of the People as well.

I was scriptwriter

at Servant of the People,

and now I am speech writer.

It was something new.

We didn't know how it works. We didn't know how...

We didn't know what is a political election campaign,

er, actually.

We don't have a big budget.

We have one office and 30 people. That's nothing.

Zelensky's main opponent was Petro Poroshenko, the incumbent President.

Poroshenko was always challenging Zelensky for the bid.

And the basic idea of Poroshenko was very simple,

to demonstrate the ignorance of Zelensky.

CROWD CHANTS

Zelensky came up with a great idea -

to do the debate in

a very familiar format. The show.

The performance. Stage.

With an audience.

Poroshenko was the war guy,

who would fight Russia, who would support the military

who were in the east, fighting this kind of brutal war.

Zelensky said, "I am the peace guy.

"I will bring peace to the East.

"I will sit down with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

"and we will reach a settlement."

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

REPORTER: When will you stand up to Putin?

Are you ready to be President?

I... I don't know. The people will decide it in the evening.

CHEERING

I understood everything, before election,

it will be very difficult, very difficult.

And at this moment, you understand that...

..it's not about difficulties, it's about another life.

That's it. Another life.

To find out more about Ukraine

and some of the influential people whose stories have shaped it,

go to bbc.co.uk/zelensky,

and follow the links to the Open University's interactive gallery.