How Ukrainian Leader Volodymyr Zelensky Went From TV Star To Kremlin’s ‘Number One Target’

(CNN) — Volodymyr Zelensky approached a lectern under bright lights, preparing to deliver a message to the Ukrainian people.

“Today I will begin with some long-awaited words, which I wish to announce with pride,” he said.

“Finally,” he continued. “Ukraine is united… This is our victory.”

The speech was fiction. It’s from the final scene of “Servant of the People“, a satirical TV show about a down-on-his-luck high school teacher, played by Zelensky, who becomes president of Ukraine after his speech about corruption goes viral.

The series not only made Zelensky a star. He eventually served as a springboard for his real-life presidential campaign. In April 2019a month after the end of the show, the comedian-turned-politician was elected president of Ukraine.

Zelensky again found himself in front of a lectern on Friday, but the image he painted in the show’s final moments never felt more distant after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Thursday.

The battle for the capital Kyiv continued on Friday. Explosions lit up the sky as the Kremlin attacked the city with missiles before dawn, forcing people into bomb shelters.

In his televised address Friday morning, Zelensky was once again a man of character, this time playing David to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Goliath. Wearing a dark green T-shirt with dark circles under his eyes, the Ukrainian president struck a defiant tone, praising the country’s armed forces for “brilliantly defending the country.”

“Now is an important moment,” Zelensky said. “The fate of our country is being decided.”

“This gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis”

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began early Thursday. Moscow’s forces attacked by land, sea and air, prompting a barrage of international condemnation and sanctions, and questions about Putin’s broader ambitions for Ukraine and his capital.

Putin framed the “military operation” as a necessary action after the United States and its allies crossed Russia’s “red lines” by expanding NATO eastward.

Zelensky again called on Putin on Friday for direct talks. “There are fights all over Ukraine now. Let’s sit at the negotiating table to stop the deaths of people,” he said in Russian.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia was ready to participate in the talks in Minsk, the Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported. A Zelensky adviser told CNN that Kyiv is considering the proposal.

Ukraine’s democratically elected government remains intact, but Putin has made it clear this week that he does not view Ukraine as a legitimate sovereign state. On Friday he called on the Ukrainians to overthrow Zelensky.

“Take power into your own hands,” Putin said. “It seems that it will be easier for us to come to an agreement (with you) than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis who have settled in Kyiv and who have taken the entire Ukrainian people hostage.”

Putin and his government have repeatedly made unfounded and inaccurate claims that the democratically elected Ukrainian government is a “fascist” or “Nazi” regime. Zelensky is Jewish and his relatives died in the Holocaust.

Putin’s comments are unlikely to spur any kind of Ukrainian uprising. Many of Kyiv’s residents have left the city, and those who remain are unlikely to support him, considering Ukraine’s last pro-Russian leader, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted in a popular uprising in 2014.

Zelensky was elected five years later, defeating Petro Poroshenko, but his tenure has been a difficult one. The first few months of his term were engulfed by the quid-pro-quo scandal that saw former US President Donald Trump attempt to put pressure on Ukraine to dig up dirty laundry from his electoral opponent and now President Joe Biden. and his son Hunter.

Covid-19 then swept the country. Zelensky’s campaign promises, such as ending the war in eastern Ukraine and rooting out corruption, remain unfulfilled.

But the danger Zelensky faces is no longer just political.

US officials warned lawmakers that Russian forces entering Ukraine through Belarus were about 20 miles away from Kyiv, sources told CNN.

And intelligence officials in Washington worry that the city could fall under Russian control within days. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Zelensky remains a “primary target for Russian aggression,” while Zelensky himself said Russia had marked him as its “number one target.”

“They want to politically destroy Ukraine by destroying the head of state,” he said.

CNN’s Anna Chernova, Kara Fox, Helen Regan and Nathan Hodge contributed to this report.