The 46-year-old said his ambition when he was elected in 2019 had been to help Ukraine become a modern democracy, before that mission was shattered by Russia’s invasion in 2022.
“All I wanted five years ago was a very liberal country with a liberal economy,” Zelenskiy, a former stand-up comic, told Reuters in an interview in May on the fifth anniversary of his inauguration.
This week, he instead found himself professing his desire to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin as he expressed anger and anguish over an airstrike that hit Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital.
Ukraine’s Zelenskiy, hardened by war, exhorted Western leaders to action at the NATO summit in Washington in recent days. He is a world away from the political novice who became president, let alone the TV comedian who was a showbiz heavyweight for years before.
He once even won Ukraine’s version of “Dancing with the Stars”.
The clean-shaven, boyish Zelenskiy sworn in as president in Kyiv in 2019 wearing a stylish suit fitted to his slight frame has been replaced by a much older looking, heavier-set, brooding figure typically clad in paramilitary fatigues with unshaven stubble and dark circles under his eyes.
Zelenskiy largely veered away from questions about himself in the interview with Reuters, instead focusing on his deep frustrations with some of Ukraine’s wartime allies and returning to his central message: the West must to do more to help.
Reuters spoke to eight current and former Ukrainian and foreign officials who have worked with Zelenskiy, as well as several friends and colleagues from his past.
They paint a portrait of a leader who has become tougher and more decisive, less tolerant of mistakes and even prone to paranoia, as he copes with round-the-clock stress and fatigue.
“This is a sleep-deprived regime,” said Zelenskiy’s former defence minister Oleksii Reznikov, adding that the president was often on the move around Ukraine and had a “grab bag” with a change of clothes and a toothbrush because he frequently didn’t know where he’d be spending the night.
“This is the president’s daily life – broken sleep. It is consultations at night and addresses to parliaments, senates … regardless of the time,” Reznikov said. “He’s in stress mode 24 hours a day, seven days a week – it’s a never-ending marathon.”
There’s little tolerance for the ill-prepared.
Zelenskiy will order officials and advisers out of the room if he feels they’re not fully ready, according to a member of his team, who recounted how the president dismissed his aides in
frustration during a meeting earlier this year to plan the information campaign surrounding the mobilisation drive.
“If he sees people aren’t prepared or are contradicting each other, he’ll say, get out of here. I don’t have time for this,” said the team member who was present at the meeting and requested anonymity to speak freely about Zelenskiy.
Many of the people interviewed spoke of being impressed by Zelenskiy’s mental endurance and his ability to cope with his role as Ukraine’s president, wartime commander-in-chief and bridge to the world.
“His memory is a huge strength. He keeps a large amount of information in his head, he very quickly grasps details and nuances,” Reznikov said. “This gift accelerated his rapid mastery of the English language – I watched it.”
Former minister Reznikov, who was dismissed by Zelenskiy in September 2023 after corruption scandals at his ministry that he denied any connection with, dismissed any suggestion that a former TV funnyman with scant geopolitical experience could take on the might of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, whose forces overwhelmingly outnumber and outgun Ukraine’s.
“I would apply Mark Twain’s quote to President Zelenskiy,” he added. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
At the same time, Zelenskiy has grown increasingly “paranoid” about suspected Russian attempts to assassinate him and destabilise Ukraine’s leadership, according to a senior European official who has held talks with the leader.
“And rightly so,” the official added.
