Between Scylla And Charybdis

Ukraine’s President Zelensky faces a choice between two undesirable outcomes

Allan Milne Lees
8 min readSep 27, 2024
Image credit: The Telegraph

When he ran for the Presidency of Ukraine, comedian Volodymyr Zelensky had enjoyed a life of seemingly endless success. From his early years in Krivoy Rog he’d been an entertainer, possessed of endless energy and self-confidence, and his willingness to push the boundaries by mocking the powerful had endeared him to millions of Ukrainians and Russians alike. He’d even been offered an astonishing salary and a cushy job on Russia’s most popular entertainment show, which was the kind of prize most people would have killed for. Zelensky, however, turned the job offer down because he preferred to remain in Ukraine, surrounded by his childhood friends. Instead of going to Russia solo and enjoying the life of a TV star he persuaded his friends to move to Kyiv with him, form a production company, and create their own future together.

A series of successful movies followed, along with appearances on Ukraine’s most popular TV show. And then came слуга нагоду (Servant of the People) which ultimately propelled him into the Presidency in 2019. At that point, Ukraine had been invaded twice by Russian in 2014 and both the Donbass and Crimea seemed lost forever. Legally binding guarantees by the UK and the USA to ensure Ukrainian territorial integrity had been…

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Allan Milne Lees

Anyone who enjoys my articles here on Medium may be interested in my books Why Democracy Failed and The Praying Ape, both available from Amazon.