In the war room: our exclusive visit to Zelensky’s “fortress”

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist in London. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Today, a special show.

So it's Sunday morning. I'm recording this podcast in Lviv in Western Ukraine. I've just returned here on the overnight train from Kyiv.

Our editor in chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes went on a journey with our Russia editor Arkady Ostrovsky to the heart of Ukraine's war effort.

Is it doubt because you're darkening it or because it's the end of the very limited to my.

I think I always was strong, but not so. Not like. Not like today, of course.

We heard last weekend that there might be a possibility of a one on one interview with President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was confirmed a day or so later. And of course we jumped at the chance, started making arrangements, left London. When was it? Thursday morning. Flew to Warsaw, drove to the border, then drove on to Lviv and took the overnight train. The chance to meet Zelenskyy was just an extraordinary journalistic opportunity. What he has done to lead the Ukrainian people into grave determined resistance to Russian forces is something that has captured the imagination of the world. The possibility of meeting him was something that I just couldn't miss. Also going of Course, to Kyiv at this moment gave me the chance to witness personally what was happening in Ukraine. I mean, it is right here on our doorstep. And then of course, an added bonus was that I was going with Arkady, who is not just our Russia editor. A walking history book, a walking cultural guide to this part of the world. A kind of Tolstoy meets journalist. And so the three things together just were too good an opportunity to miss, whatever the risks. Okay, Ari, tell me where we are.

So we are at the border between Poland and Ukraine. On the the other side is the little place where you cross and then you get to Lviv. We're about an hour and a half away from Lviv. I think the station we're going to get picked up is called Chigini and there are a few, you know, there's quite a lot of. A few ambulances. It's all very calm. So we're now on the Ukrainian side.

We're now on the Ukrainian side. Very, very, very different to the Polish side. As you can see there. Yes, many, many more people. Long queue on the left hand side here there's boxes, there's people who've been standing here. We've been told for hours. There are people with lots of energy bars being given out, people helping. But a really very long queue. Been walking now for about two minutes, I'd say. We're still not at the end of the queue. I don't know, I'm not so good with numbers. What do you think? 500 people?

Yes, about that. Probably about. Yeah, but possibly more.

I think we're now going to go and try and find our driver who's going to take us to Lviv station. The experience of seeing hundreds of refugees crossing the border was a powerful one. But it was actually only when we got to Lviv train station that I really felt a sense that we were in a country at war. So this is Lviv station at about 10 o' clock in the evening on March 24th. I'm sitting against a pillar. Seats are all completely taken. There is a very distinctive smell, smell that Arcadi calls the smell of war. People who have not had the chance to wash, the smell of exhaustion. This does not feel like normal and it's pretty sobering experience. Now we're looking for platform two, Platform two, east side one. Waiting for the train to Kiev which has been delayed. This train just leaving, if the train is completely dark, all the trains travel completely dark and obviously it makes it much safer. The lights actually in the station are dimmed and both Arcadia and I had a very Strong sense walking into the station tonight that it was the first time we felt we were in a water.

So here we are on the train from Lviv to Kyiv. It's quarter to midnight, the end of the first day, which saw us flying from London.

As we were settling in for the night, our carriage's attendant, a woman, probably, I guess in her early 60s, came into our car to talk to us. I caught a chunk of it, she said. I heard her say she was frightened, but tell me what she was saying.

Yes, I mean she wanted to talk, she's from Kyiv and she saw us as you know, she came up to us because we're foreigners, because we were journalists, wanted to talk, wanted to tell, just share the pain. Just the pain was sort of very. She used the word several times. She said, this is a nice country, nice, normal, kind country. And now there is. And she used the word. She's a Russian speaker and she used the word which is something that has befallen you, something that struck you. It's a disaster, it's a trouble, it's sorrow, it's grief, It's a short Russian word which means so much and which is actually, come to think of it, associated with war.

I think it's time to get a good night's sleep.

Yes. Good night all.

Good night. After a restful night on the train, as the morning sun shone, we rolled into Kiev. Arriving in Kiev, Soldiers outside train. It's a beautiful sunny day, amazingly sunny and very warm. Here we are, on to the next. It was quite a journey to get to see President Zelensky. We first of all drove through Kiev, past the anti tank obstacles, the fortified checkpoints. There were a lot of men with guns. We had to change cars and eventually we arrived at a big metal gate. The aide who was accompanying us, I remember this very vividly, said welcome to our fortress. Inside there were a lot of snipers, a lot of sandbags. We went into a building, down some steps, it got dark. We had to leave our phones, devices, electronics, pens at the door, anything that could give away our location. We emerge from these darkened corridors and come into a room which is the room that everyone will have seen around the world. It's the situation room, if you will, that is beamed on zoom every time President Zelenskyy talks to parliaments around the world. And it actually looks, you know, frankly like a kind of corporate conference room. White formica table, high backed office chairs. And we were sitting in there and suddenly there was a slight kerfuffle. But he walks in and he's extremely authentic. He's very low key.

Thank you so much.

He sits down and we're about to start the interview. And it's a bit confusing because there are a lot of, we're not quite sure, Russian, Ukrainian, English. And so to sort of lighten things up before we start the formal interview, I asked him a question, which is actually something I've been really wondering, which is, where does he get his stock of camouflage chic green sweatshirts, hoodies, you know, the things that have inspired Emmanuel Macron's fashion sense. So I have to ask you one informal question, which is, did you have all of these clothes?

Yes, I had it before the ho. Yes, I had not. Not so much.

He seemed like a man who probably never imagined he would face such a challenge, but I think has realized that he had it in him to face it.

I think I always was strong, but not like today. Of course, not like today, people and helped.

How did that transformation happen? It's an extraordinary change.

I think that these changes happened already in Ukraine when they elected me, when they voted, because the people, Ukrainians, they understood that they want changes. They saw my honest position to everything.

To everything.

Did you know you had this inside you to be so brave, to be such a strong person?

You know, it's not about I'm brave or not. It's like I have to do this way. It's like all of us, that we are not ready for the war, because before it began, you can't say if I would be the president of Ukraine or Ukraine I would do this way or this. You can't imagine what does it mean? And you can't imagine even how you will do. It was like with me.

In fact, the really remarkable thing was that Zelenskyy found out about the war's start from his children.

I think nobody, nobody understood what to do. When it began in Kyiv, I was in the residence and my wife and my children, they told me that early in the morning, it was five o', clock, four, four fifty. And they told me earlier then I've got the call from our staff.

Your wife and children told you?

They told that something. Something going on because we heard it very loud and we was sleeping.

And at that moment you knew straight.

Away we knew about that they are preparing. We knew it, of course, but even.

Once the shelling started, he told us that he was very clear that he did not want to leave Kyiv, even though that had been the presidential protocol.

And they said that the protocol that if you will not be safe, it will Be a big problem for the Ukraine. You have to be in such place where you will be safe. And it's not about you. It's like drunk man on the road that it's not about his life. It's also about the lives in other cars. Yes, but. But I'm not drunk.

And I changed the protocol.

You didn't go, yes, of course, of course. I changed everything. What I could do. I think that.

And you decided that by yourself, you.

Said, yes, of course, of course I understood what's going on. I understood that all these steps and all these protocols, all that things, they about global things, not not only about Ukraine. That's why I'm saying that I'm not a hero. Maybe, maybe.

Over the past month, it's clear that Ukraine has had a thumping victory in the information war. And that's an area where Zelenskyy, former actor, has really come into his own. Is that why now you are speaking to the people of the west rather than to deposition?

Of course, I think so. That sometimes politicians live in vacuum atmosphere, first of all, information atmosphere. That we do that so the consequences can be escalations and war. What we see that this. Closed atmosphere, which is with Putin now. So he doesn't. He doesn't know. I can't describe everything what's going on with him, I can't describe because I don't know how much that with whom he speaks each day or each week. And that means that he can't understand or he couldn't know what's going on outside. Even me, if I'm sitting in the office and I'm not going outside in three, four days, you will not know correct information what's going on in the world.

Because only this interview was pretty remarkable because it was conducted in a rather chaotic combination of three different languages. President Zelensky speaks really quite good English now and indulged me by speaking in English for a lot of the time. He responded to questions in Russian himself, but when he got tired of speaking English, he felt it was important to respond to questions in English in Ukrainian, not in Russian. So we had a complete melee and at one point there wasn't a formal interpreter, and an interpreter had to be brought in, and he was busy doing something else. But we got through it and we now switch in this to Ukrainian. So you've talked about the beginning, but let's talk about now, where we are now, the stage of the war, do you think? I think it's, you know, is there a real chance you can win?

We believe in victory.

What does a victory look like? A Ukrainian victory.

To save as many people as we can.

I don't know how long it will.

Last, but we'll fight until the last.

The very last city we have.

And for that victory you need more help? And what kind of help?

We have a long list.

That's why we're here.

That's why we're here.

First, what's to act preventively. That's what we've been saying all this time, what we've been saying to our partners all the time. That's what I insisted that if sanctions.

Were preemptive, that this full scale wouldn't have been this other scale.

But when you've said this, you say it to your Western, Western partners. You ask for tanks, you ask for jets. And yet Macron said this is a red line they will not cross. Why is that? When you talk to them, you ask for more defensive weapons. You ask for offensive weapons.

They say no, because they afraid Russia. That's it.

Right now you have asked for many things. What are your top priorities now? Right now, when people.

Airplanes number one, airplanes number two. But it's number one.

Tanks.

Yes. We don't have it so much as we need. And we've got a lot of.

From Russia.

You have to know that they are running. Yeah, they are running. Yes, they are afraid our soldiers. And they were running, I think yesterday. We've got 12 or 17.

So are you close to running out of essential tanks? It's not about that. We are running out of the essential equipment that we need, but that nobody is supplying us to add to that. And it's about tanks, it's about jets, it's about armored vehicles. And we already sent out the letters.

To the countries because we know the.

List of the countries who possess what.

From the modern equipment up to the Soviet types of the equipment.

And we send out the letters to all of them asking for the supply to be all.

Who hasn't got this letter?

Are you making any progress in getting. Do you think he will get them?

I don't know. It depends of these countries and usa, NATO, because many of these countries, especially European countries, they said that we have the exception of NATO and they don't have it.

Can there be a lasting peace with Putin in the Kremlin? It seems to me that Putin himself.

Doesn'T know about that.

We kept talking. We asked President Zelenskyy more about what countries were doing the most to help. We talked about Russia, we talked about Vladimir Putin. This still sticks with me. He told Me that Vladimir Putin wasn't even mourning the Russian army's casualties, that he was throwing Russian soldiers like logs into a train's furnace. I guess the conversation must have gone on for another hour more, and at the end, we wrapped up. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Before you go, I have to ask you a last question of our time. Churchill practiced his speeches a lot. Do you practice yours?

No, I don't have time. I feel it.

You feel it and the world hears it. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Thank you for coming.

So much. Appreciate.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

All the best.

Thank you. We were eventually led back out of the building. We got our phones, our equipment, retraced our steps, and emerged out into the bright sunshine of the streets of Kiev. A little later in the afternoon, we went out for a walk, strolling around the empty streets of Kiev, completely, hauntingly empty. That's our car there, in case we have to get into it in a hurry and get out of here. We spent the night. The following day, we had more interviews, and then we went back to the train station for the overnight train to Lviv. And when we finally got to this hotel room, I asked Arkady, what did he make of all of this?

Well, Zani, Yes. I mean, this wow. And what has just happened is something that actually been following me throughout this trip, because there is a sense of completely surreal reality around us. I mean, this is a Second World War movie set, except it's actually really happening. And what really struck me is how Zelenskyy was not performing. You know, you could expect an actor, very good communicator, as he said, to do his spiel, you know, to be a commander, to be a war leader, to be Churchill. And actually, because everything that's happening is so real, it is to do with his life. He's the target. His wife, his family, his kids. There was no room for performance. There is no room there for some rhetorical flourishes. He is who he is, and he understands that it is his genuine and his authenticity which is what makes people believe him. I think this is what's so striking, is that to a lot of the outside world, and because this is the way how we try to conceptualize it, it's a movie, it's a book. It's something from history to these people in this country at the moment, this is the story, this is the life they're having.

I think that's right. He is the kind of the country personified right now, because whether it's the trains Whether it's the nature of the anti tank barricades in Kiev, it's all faintly, it's not chaotic, but it's sort of informally organized, it's networked, it's sort of spontaneous groups of people. Everyone we talked to, and we talked to many people in the subsequent days, many more interviews, we were sort of piecing together a picture of a country's resistance that wasn't really sort of. There wasn't a grand plan from on top. It's been the epitome of, I guess, cooperative spontaneity. And Zelenskyy, I think he's playing his role in this and his role is to be the communicator. He is the person who is talking to the world. He's talking to the parliament, he's talking to the people of the world. He is the face, the voice of Ukraine. And that's his role in this. He's playing it extraordinary. Well, you're right, he's not acting because he is being himself. He's being absolutely authentic.

Zanny, I think you've actually picked on something absolutely essential, not just about this war, but about this country. Because over the years, one of the most frustrating things covering Ukraine was just how chaotic it is. You know, it can't be run like this. You know, there are no institutions, you know, there is anarchy, but in fact it is corrupt. Anarchy, corrupt anarchy. Sometimes, you know, sometimes extraordinary movement of people and voluntary movements, particularly since the revolution of dignity in 2013. But it is actually exactly that, that anarchy, that sense of we don't rely on the state, we all know what to do. The country comes together, everybody knows their place. It's that chaos, it's that anarchy, it's that network effect, if you like, that actually made this country so strong and made it resist the largest army in Europe for four weeks. I mean, it is extraordinary.

And Zelenskyy is the public, international avatar of that. He's the man who is addressing the British Parliament and quoting Churchill, Addressing the American Congress and remembering 9, 11, It's pitch perfect. He's laying out what Ukraine needs. He's the face, he's the voice of Ukraine. He is the avatar of a determined, brave country that is resisting with all its might Putin's aggression.

The war of Russia is not only the war against Ukraine, its meaning is much wider. Russia started the war against freedom as it is. That's the reason we all must stop Russia. The world must stop the war.

There was a lot more to the interview with President Zelenskyy. Have a listen to the whole thing on Thursday on our interview show. The Economist asks. And Our sister magazine 1843 provides a fly on the wall feeling of being inside the presidential compound with a leader who, despite it all, is never far from cracking a joke. Find all of our wider coverage and the very latest news at Economist. Com Ukraine crisis. We'll see you back here tomorrow.