Okay. So, President Zelenskyy, thank you so much for talking to me and we'll get into what's happening today. But first, I want to go back in time to your great-grandparents who were among more than a million Ukrainian Jews killed during the Nazi occupation. To your grandfather who joined the Soviet army in 1942, his three brothers who all perished. And I wonder what impact these stories had on you growing up as you learned your family's history.
I think all the roots and all the stories of families have some important influence on your life and it's understandable. And of course, I think that the people who experience the war, they are focusing only on very important things.
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Of course, the time what I had with my grandfather, of course, had influence. Yes, because you speak about ordinary things but basing on the experience of your life and yes, it has some influence. But I think that family education and also friends, school, a lot of things which are very important. Education is, you know, one of the very important things which has influence on you, on your view and on your values and how you see and how you feel the world and your attitude to everything.
Tell me about your own parents. The happily they're still alive, but it can't be easy for them at the moment seeing the life that you have to lead and the relentless pressure that you're under.
No, I think my mother, of course, it's difficult for her to understand, to hear, to feel, and then it's understandable very much. She's very sensitive. She knows me very well. That's why when she sees me, for example, on TV or somewhere, she understands when I'm tired or not, if I'm okay or I have some questions and or problems. And of course, all these challenges. Yes. For her, maybe it's more difficult even for me. Yes. And for my father, no, he's very supportive. He understands very well. If with my mother we have communication almost each day, she calls me. Yeah. I'm so sorry I have to call but sometimes I'm too busy. I'm busy. I forget. Yeah. So but she never forgot. She has to call me. I don't know. If I'm not answering, by the way, I have a problem. It means that I will have 10, 20 phone calls from her. So that's why it's better to answer the first.
And when you were growing up, would they ever have thought that you would end up becoming a politician?
Because my family is, you know, like the family of scientists. Because my father is a scientist and scientists are almost anti-political, anti-establishment, anti-parties. They never recognize politicians and etc. So that's why I said immediately, of course not. So the politics is not a very important topic in my family. So it was more about, yes, of course, we discussed with my father and mother, we discuss what's going on in the world but not from the point of politics, from the point of, you know, challenges and from the point of security and the economy and etc. So, but no, no politics.
Okay. And you did a law degree, but because comedy was really your thing, you then get into this KVN comedy competition. Were you always very, very funny as a child? Were you funny?
Yes. And but we have good sense of humor in my family. I always had. My father, he loved to joke. Yes. And a lot of such things. We love to read such books and funny stories and comedies just to have fun with family and etc. So we are not grumpy. We are not grumpy. Not grumpy. Not you're a grumpy old man. So it's normal for us. Then I studied in judicial university. I studied law because I mean this profession was very popular at this very moment when I studied and when I graduated school. And so that's why, because my father, he's a scientist. He's about cybernetic math. It's all about it. So I studied first math with him. But what I understood that he's cleverer than me in this, in math. And I said to him, look, I don't want to be the second. That's why I don't want that you always look at me that in math you know more than me and you will know and understand more even in 10 and 20 years. I don't want this feeling because I knew, by the way, I knew math very well but not as well as my father because he is a professor and this is his life. And then that's why I said no, you do your own thing, something different, yes. And I wanted to study in some diplomacy in the university in the capital but it was, I mean, impossible because it was very, we didn't have enough for this budget because you need some money for this to live somewhere and etc. So I'm from another city, not from the capital. That's why it was difficult. But the most understandable was to study in the university, to study the law and to go to this profession.
And very everybody in the world pretty much now knows that you played a teacher who became president. But you were very much more than a comedian. You were a kind of entertainment entrepreneur. You at one point you were a TV executive. You were inventing different formats and so forth. Did you imagine that was going to be your life forever or was there always a part of you thinking maybe politics?
First of all, I loved my profession what I had before the politics. I was the owner or one of the owners of a big production company, maybe one of the biggest. And of course, I loved this profession. It was about creative things. I was the CEO of this company, not only one of the owners, I was the CEO of the company. And then I loved the TV and movie from the point of producing, from the point of marketing and ideas. So I loved to create the idea, it was like a business idea, and to do it from the very beginning to the end. It's like, you know, that there are positive producers and negative. I think positive producers who create the idea and then make the product. Negative producers, they only can find some money at the end of the process. During the editing, they will say it's not good, it's something bad and etc. So I don't very respect such people because I think that the best producer finds the way how to choose the great idea or to create it by himself or by herself.
And you also, you met your wife Olena in that period. She was a comedy writer. And I'm just wondering, before we get on to the really serious stuff, everything in your life right now must feel incredibly serious and stressful. Are you still able to have a good time with her and to have a laugh and actually just to joke about things or do you just feel weighed down by the pressure of what you're doing?
By the way, my wife before she became my wife, she was a scriptwriter and I also love this profession and I also was a scriptwriter some years. But now I don't have time. Of course, now I'm the president of the country which is in war. I'm focusing on one thing, on Ukraine, and this is my priority. If you are focusing on trying to manage different things, you will not be successful in one. So that's why I can understand what is the most important for today for me and for Ukraine. I work for Ukraine, on Ukraine. But do you sometimes not to forget that you can't be very serious with everything, otherwise you will become crazy because it's just about crazy people who don't have sense of humor. It's crazy people. It's, by the way, it's not only my opinion. I know a lot of soldiers, officers, and doctors who are managing and save lives. But you can't be very serious each moment. Yes, you have to be professional and be very serious with your profession, but there are some things on which you can't look very seriously, otherwise you will shift your focus from really serious things.
Now, 2018 you announce that you're running for office. 2019 you win a runoff against Poroshenko with 73%. And at that point Vladimir Putin has already annexed Crimea. He's begun his campaign. Did you feel at the time that he might one day go for a full invasion? And did you discuss with your friends and your family what that might mean for you? The prospect of being the war leader that you've now become or did you think it would never happen?
And of course, I couldn't estimate about full-scale war. It's unbelievable how it can be. So but really, it was a very bad surprise when they occupied Crimea. You have borders with Russia. You have long history, a part of USSR history and etc. And of course, you can't even imagine that there will be someday aggression and it will be a full-scale war and not only temporary occupation. The really goal of Russians to occupy all your country and to destroy Ukraine. I didn't know about it, of course.
And also famously, when the invasion happened, you said to President Biden and President Erdogan, 'I don't need a ride, I need ammunition.' That's the moment where I think people sensed you were a leader of just exceptional leadership and courage. But was there a moment when you felt real personal fear at the scale of what you were about to be confronted with?
Um, not, I mean, this, I'm a live person. We have all these emotions what all the people have. Of course, when you hear about children, about your country, about your family, it's very understandable. But for me, the most important is to push away any kind of emotions and to focus on the steps that what I can do and I could do it before this profession. Yes. In the difficult moments, I can put myself together. So that I had to do it and that's why I saw a lot of people around who've been in a big stress and some chaos and etc. But I think that I could manage what to do. And of course, I had phone calls, you know, each 5, 10 minutes during the first days of the war. Yes, it was, I mean, very difficult and I had phone calls from all the generals of my country, just the government which been in the western part. I moved it to the western part of Ukraine because I saw that if we will be occupied totally, we need to manage how to manage the country. Yeah. And that's why I decided, I made some steps with banking system. I can't share with you where I moved them but I moved them. Yes. And also I moved the government. I had to, not big team in Kyiv. We had to stay here. So and of course, leaders came to me that they said that in such, and not only them, also security and etc. And they all, my own security, they all said that in such circumstances we need to move you to some security places somewhere. And leaders of the world including United States, they wanted to move me somewhere to other country and to help me with this and just to save me because they knew that Putin wants that. At this moment it was understandable that Russians wanted to occupy Kyiv and of course they wanted to do something with me. Now it's understandable, now it's not so difficult to look back and to understand what is the idea how to occupy it and of course the destabilization with the people when they don't have the leader, when they don't have the president and you can't join everybody. Yeah. I made a decision without, it was not something emotional etc. So again, God bless the education helped me. I understand what to do and I understood what Russians wanted and I knew what I had to do like the president of the country.
And if I can go back to 1994 and the Budapest agreement where United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia agreed that if Ukraine gave its nuclear weapons to Russia, you'd get guarantees of security, sovereignty, and border security. That kind of went with Crimea, but it was now with the invasion, it was utterly shattered. Did you feel, did your country feel betrayed at that point?
For today, looking what's going on in the world, not only in Ukraine, in the Middle East, you understand that the biggest and the strongest security guarantees, it's your country, your people. When you want to exchange something, you can't exchange some military equipment, doesn't matter, nuclear in this case in your example or air defense and etc. or jets, sky fleet, air fleet and etc. It doesn't mean that you have to exchange these on similar things. For example, it's very expensive to hold these jets or the whole big army. You exchange it to the place in NATO that this NATO fleet will defend you in a very dangerous moment if somebody will come to occupy you or something like this. The same with nuclear weapon. If you decided to change nuclear weapon, the price had to be fair. And I think the NATO is the smallest price, smallest what Ukraine, what the leaders of Ukraine and ministry of defense, president, government, the parliament, what they had to get instead of nuclear weapon. What we've got, we've got nothing. So it's a not fair game and it's a big mistake in any way. By the way, it's not only Ukrainian mistake. I don't want to push only these signals to our past and they said it's also about other security guarantors who are in this Budapest memo and it's nuclear countries. If they said that you will not have nuclear weapon, they have to give you umbrella of security, maybe nuclear umbrella because you are nuclear countries and other things. And that's why it was lies, of course, it was lies. Without, they've got our nuclear weapon, they moved it, by the way, mostly to Russia. So not only this, I know how strategic aviation was destroyed of Ukraine totally, the biggest jets, strategic aviation. So they are very strong. By the way, such strategic jets Russia used against us during this full-scale war. So, a lot of different mistakes.
You did have direct dealings with Vladimir Putin, first by phone, then you had face-to-face talks with him during the so-called Normandy talks when they resumed. I understand how you see him today. How did you see him then?
I tried to find a way of negotiations. What I wanted just when I became the president, I'm the young president who understood that we have to finish with this because we need to increase economy, GDP for Ukraine. And to do this, we need investment, we need free economy, we need the way to EU and etc. Something what will open for us markets. And of course, Russia's influence, the fact that they temporarily occupied some territories, of course, and they also blocked for us some markets. It was understandable that we need to find a way of stabilizing the situation. That's why we needed to make some format of negotiations because when I came, we had already Minsk agreement. We had the table for meetings and technical groups and etc. And we had hundreds of such tactical meetings before me and then after. And I wanted to speak with him and I wanted very much to end this Minsk agreement because for me it was like, you know, it's such format of destabilizing, not full-scale war but not peace time. And this is the signal to all the investors that you can't develop your country.
And what's your sense of him today and his psychology and what you actually think he's trying to achieve right now?
I understand 100% what he wants today. I think he made a historical mistake with a full-scale war. And of course, occupation was also his mistake. But it was, you know, the moment of the life when you can find, at least try to find some diplomatic way to de-escalate. And he moved to this operation which really became the war. He moved to operation, he said about 3, 4 days, but we know what was at the end. So this is a full-scale war. And he really thought, his estimation was that he can occupy us, that leaders will take me out or Russians will kill me. It doesn't matter. I'm in this, how to move me out from the capital. Yes. And they understood that the Ukrainian people will not join and they will move to the parliament because they had in parliament their party which was financed by Russia and the party was the second, by the way. It was a big party. They had the plan of operation, of strategy.
Our security service produced a report this week that said on the front line you're doing better than you have for almost a year. And yet the language is all about, you know, he's still going and he keeps going. So what do you think he is trying to achieve now?
I think for today he understood that he can't occupy us totally. He recognized it for himself and for partners. I'm sure sometimes is different to you. Sometimes he shares with partners what he's thinking about really. Yes. But he recognizes that he can't occupy us. Now the second point, it's understandable that he has so many losses for today and on the front he doesn't have well-trained people, enough number of well-trained soldiers and officers to destroy us. And he needs time for this. And I think that his goal is to find a way out with a victory. That's why he's trying to withdraw us from Donbas. By diplomacy, by the way, by the Americans' dialogue with us that we have by ourselves withdraw from Donbas. Because for him it's losses, hundreds of thousands. By the way, we see that he can't occupy Donbas in some years if he will be able, I mean, not he can or not, if he will be able to do it, he needs more people, more money and losses will be from 300,000 to 1 million depends how many years he will need additional losses. So this is a big price even for Putin. And that's why he wants to find such way of ending the war. But for him, that will be the pause in the way if we will withdraw by ourselves from Donbas. Of course, he understands that our people, our country will be divided because to withdraw by ourselves, you know, partially people will be against it. He understands that our unity can be divided and he will look if the unity and society will be divided, he will continue very quickly to make something like blitzkrieg and something like this to occupy Kyiv. If not, he will need pause for well-trained people for him, for training missions, for increasing the production and for blocking us economically, lifting sanctions from his energy sector and etc. Find a way to deal with Europe because it's fire or something like this can help him also. So it's not only our wish.
