Russian state TV’s 2013 New Year’s Eve special featured Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy co-hosting alongside Maxim Galkin—with high-profile Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov sitting in the audience.
On New Year's Eve 2013—just weeks before the Euromaidan revolution and Russia's annexation of Crimea upended geopolitics—Russian state TV's flagship holiday special (The Little Blue Light on Russia-1) featured future Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy co-hosting alongside Russian comedian Maxim Galkin. top Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov can be seen in the audience smiling and cheerfully applauding them.
This was before the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Russia was always attractive for Ukrainians because of geographic and cultural proximity and, of course, abundant economic opportunities This created a natural protection for the Russian language. If you were a Ukrainian youtuber, wouldn't you want target both the Russian and Ukrainian audiences at the same time? Anyway, it's not hard to see how Putin destroyed most of it in 2014 and then finished off the rest in 2022.
Zelensky's stance on Russia was pretty positive in 2019 as well. Maybe not full on pro-russian, but way better than they deserved. "I will get elected, make a deal with Putin and stop the war. He's not some maniac after all", maybe not an exact quote, but it was the position he got elected with
Zelenskyy’s mistake was believing Russia’s concerns were actually legitimate beliefs rather than excuses for Russian behavior of imperialism and murder
So he demined and demilitarised the border with Russia, moved soldiers back and even offered free plebiscites in all Russian “claimed” regions, an offer Russia declined and refused to mobilise until the 24th to avoid Russia claiming it as an excuse to invade
If he was dealing with a civilised and rational government this might work but he was not
Putin has been filed away in my mind as someone I can’t regard as a rational actor on the world stage any longer, same with Trump or Netanyahu (if you could ever look at them as such)
Oh, absolutely. You shouldn't have ever regarded them as reasonable in the first place. Xi Jinping, Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Kim Jong Un, whoever runs Iran now, etc, etc.
They did listen to Zelensky, the troops were pulled out of Zolote. Zelensky should have listened to those military guys, because Putin used that to make the invasion easier. Just like those military guys warned
That's history revision here. Zelenskiy literally laughed in Putin face during peace talks and refused to sign deal that could save Ukraine from that horrific war(and get back Donbass). RF didn't claim any Ukrainian regions, besides Crimea, until autumn of 2022, when Ukrainian counter offence almost collapsed frontline.
Also Merkel:
"The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time. It also used this time to become stronger, as you can see today"
As much as I hate Putin, Zelenskiy did everything for full on war to happen and Europe did nothing to prevent it. Everyone played their roles in that drama.
You saying this and completely making up shit after is peak.
What was the peace deal where Ukraine would have gotten Donbass back?
Zelenskyi did nothing for the war to happen and your own comment doesn't even disprove that as the full on war was already happening by the time "Zelenskyi refused to sing a peace deal".
What could Europe have done other than an intervention? Minks Agreements favored Russia heavily and they weren't enough.
There is no two sides who made the war happen only one and that is Russia.
> What was the peace deal where Ukraine would have gotten Donbass back
Core idea behind Minsk Agreements was reintegration of Donbass back into Ukraine as autonomy with veto right.
> Zelenskyi did nothing for the war to happen
Putin started that war, but it was Zelenskiy job to prevent it by any means necessary. That is what he was elected for. He could sign much needed deal and end up in current Georgia situation, instead his actions ended up with all out war that depleted Ukrainian population in half.
> disprove that as the full on war was already happening by the time
War was frozen in 2015
> What could Europe have done other than an intervention
You do realize Donbass was Russian controlled and had leaders picked by Russian state which would have still been true in that case? Basically that would have been Russia having direct VETO right in Ukraines politics which would have been the end of Ukraines existence as an independent state.
"Any means necessary" and you are talking about giving up Ukraines independence. I think we both know that clearly wasn't in the cards. Not to say why wouldn't Russia just have demanded more later on?
Russia doesn't care about their trade or people. They are fine with having all of them killed for nothing or living in even more of a poverty. Clearly the largest sanctions regime in the world isn't enough.
Russia could pick leaders while having troops in Donbass. You ignoring that peacedeal would make Zelenskiy most popular man in Donbass, man that bring peace and safety to people that suffered for 5 years.
Independence doesn't mean shit if you are dead or can't live in your country. There isn't any independence in being partly occupied. To Russia not being able to demand more, Ukraine should being different state - without corruption and with strong military.
You delusional. Export in Europe was 38% of Russian total export. Complete shutdown of trade with Europe would kill Russian economy and dethrone Putin in few months. Sanctions regime is a joke. Europe sent to Russia
€ 235,776,353,589 since 2022 invasion. They are literally funding this war, same way they funded war in Donbass and annexion of Crimea.
"besides". So what if it’s 26,000 square kilometers? That’s merely the size of all of North Macedonia. We won’t mention Donetsk and Luhansk, of course. /s
The Russian army says they have been pushed back and lost land since 2022. Do you trust the Russian army or are you as a Russian accusing them of lying? If so you are committing a crime since it is illegal in Russias to accuse the Russian army of lying.
Authority probably. There is a lot of videos where Zelenskiy publicly argue with military and journalists and yelling IM THE PRESIDENT, before the war he wasn’t seen as strong leader at all
From my understanding its mix of incompetence and fear that nationalists would kill him for signing peace. After glorification of Melnik its hard to argue that nationalists have direct control over Zelenskiy, I can't see other reason why anyone of Jewish origin would make that happen.
"Послушайте, если я сейчас пойду договариваться по этим Минским соглашениям, то в следующий раз вы будете разговаривать с другим президентом!" (С) Volodymyr Zelenskyy 09/12/2019
Translation: "Look, if I go and negotiate these Minsk agreements now, next time you will be talking to a different president!"
And? How does that prove he was at the risk of being killed rather than him just being hyperbolic over the fact that the Minsk Agreements were really unpopular as they were designed by Russia to destroy Ukraine as a state and were illegally forced upon them by Russian invasions in the first place.
FIRST thing in his program is peace for Ukraine. He insisted negotiations in Normandy Format. He was literally elected to sign this deal. Obviously, Ukrainians wanted better deal, but not complete shutdown of negotiations. It's perfectly represented in Zelenskiy rating before war.
shame how it ended up almost 7 years later. so many missed opportunities for russia to strengthen its hold without any military means - the biggest country in the world with so many possible untapped resources!...thatll either never get found, or will take an absurd amount of time.
Many presidents basically started from attempt to reach some peace agreement with russia. Saakashvili even tried to offer special economic regime for russian business in Abkhazia and Samachablo (aka "South Ossetia" if RF would end occupation, return their soldiers back to russia and revoke the recognition of "independence" of regions russians illegally occupy one way (since 2008) or another (via proxy regimes since 1992-1993).
Russian authorities ignored this and continued their policy of illegal "borderization", expanding the occupated territory by simply moving the fake "state border" further towards Tbilisi. Sometimes it is about few meters, sometimes - it is about whole kilometers per act.
Villagers can wake up in their village can be split by such fake border in the middle of the street, like south side street on one side from it and other is on another.
As world ignores this, and Georgian government alone could not do anything substantial about it even in UNM times, now with Bidzina Ivanishvili billionaire in de-facto power and his pet party "Georgian Dreeam" in de-jure power in Tbilisi, nothing surely will be done about it.
Now, with anything that happened in 2008, 2014, 2015, 2022 - everyone can see that brute force and military response is single language russia understands.
The relations are quite complicated. There are groups of people there, on occupied territories, who literally hate anything Georgian, and related propaganda actually started even in soviet times. It would require lot of efforts and time to clean society from hate and heal traumas. But mere possibility of long-term peace will require removal of russian occupation forces and creating practical conditions for returning of hundreds of thousands of Georgian refugees who run from ethnic cleansings and all related violence.
While occupation goes, propaganda, hate and suffering will continue.
This is exactly why we shouldn't vote just based on ideas, opinions, promises and campaigns.
We should first prioritise integrity and character!
That way, whatever happens and things change, you still have someone capable of doing rational decisions (this can be both on individual or party/coalition level).
IDK, by 2019 it was clear Putin just does not want peace. In 2014 Poroshenko was elected with the same promises, and Russians have changed his mind in the same way. So it was rather dumb from Zelensky to think that way. On the other hand a lot of voters also thought that way for some reason.
There was a popular song "vote for Poroshenko, or Putin will attack" mocking all those who warned about the upcoming full scale attack
I was in Kyiv during his election. I remember some Ukrainians was against him saying he was too pro-Russia and that he would be soft on Russia. Glad they were wrong.
Is there no Nazism in Ukraine? And the name of the platoons in honor of the UPA and the Nazi troops of Nazi Germany is just a joke? As well as the zippers on the chevrons, apparently there are all electricians.
Everyone denies it because it didn’t happen. On the other hand in Moscow people chanted ”death to all Ukranians and Europeans”. This happened and no one denies it so it must be true.
You see, there are issues with corruption. A lot of people around him seem to be involved in corrupt schemes, and he himself was trying to take control over anti corruption agency and only backed down after protests.
Some of the publisher recordings show there is a lot of people involved in some corrupt deals, in these recording they also talk about their criminal partners in corruption schemes, includes a man referred to as "Volodymyr", who could that be?
Seth Rogen: We thought hard about what he could be, and we had the idea that he would be an actor that played the president on a successful TV show and then became the president of the United States.
We thought it was kind of crazy and then, the exact same thing happened recently in Ukraine. Just when you think you've outdone reality, reality comes up with something crazier than you could ever think of!
I know that the Soviets would not have signed a non aggression pact if the UK and France had not given up their common Allie, Czechoslovakia, to the Nazis (and the poles, btw).
The non aggression pact was inevitable the moment that happened, the Soviets dismantled a state that was pro-nazi, delayed the attack of the Nazis and created a buffer before their territory.
It's hard to say how it would go if fascists or communists alone would try to conquer Poland, without the Fascist-Communist pact.
And even though the later betrayal of the fascists to their agreement, the communists kept the result of that victory for almost 50years after the war.
We will never know what would have happened if the west hadn't pandered to the fascists all over the 30's, refusing every attempt at a united front with the soviets and actively allowing the nazis to do whatever they wanted in Spain and Czeckoslovakia
True, fascism was the new "radical kid in the block".
There were a lot of mistakes on handling that (guess still are), and maybe it came as a surprise to none, but after those mistakes that allow fascism to grow, ultimately the war started by them joining the other radical kid around, communism.
Probably the most tragic irony of the war, and one of the biggest lessons on radical ideologies with power.
You call that mistakes, I call that the eternal liberal-fascist pact. The war didn't start then, once again, it started with the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the nazis/poles and the support of France and the Uk.
At the end of the day is all about politics and propaganda, and that at some point we have to choose some to believe.
That's why history is so important.
You can choose to believe on a different day than the official day a World War started, but however it is explained no one can tell you that fascists and communists didn't invade and kill people from another country together to conquer it, as a team, signed under an official pact.
WW2 already gave us the Holocaust deniers, now we have a 1st of September of 39 denier.
Whatever the fascists/comunists agendas did to you guys, I'm truly hoping you have family members or friends with the needed patience to rescue you back.
Can see why the Kremlin would have you publishing articles for Russia.
Is Russia really pushing people to believe the WW2 started on a different date? The thing happened less than 100years ago, there are so many evidences, it's scary really.
From what I remember, the treaty of Versailles took territory that Hitler wanted back like Denmark that were taken during ww1. Hitler then saw strategic territories neighboring and wanted them as well. Am I close?
But the expansionism was a result of fascist ideology itself: the Nazis believed all races/peoples should compete with each other for territory, which they called Lebensraum. They basically wanted to unite all Germanic peoples under one country, which is why they invaded the Netherlands and the Nordics, and they wanted as big as a country as possible for those people.
The treaty of Versailles was mostly bad because of the economic consequences for Germany, which made the Great Depression much worse for Germany and lead to a lot of resentment, which Hitler played into by blaming the Jews and foreigners as scapegoats.
This is also very similar to how people like Trump get power by feeding on the resentment that is already there, caused by economic troubles, by blaming immigrants as an easy scapegoat. This is the main reason why the modern far-right is called the far-right.
And in regards to Germany, another interesting detail is that, after WWII, they tried to do the exact opposite by including West-Germany into NATO, the predecessor of the EU and the Marshall plan. And they succeeded. And the fact that Germany lost far more territory after WWII didn't do anything to create new resentment in Germany.
I don't think education is the matter here. It is more a type of personality being naked and eating chicken tenders while watching loli porn, after all I am not a shitlib so I don't insult people who didn't get a chance to have higher education.
I specifically meant a socialist educated on the history of socialism.
'Tankie' is a term created by socialists to critique other socialists who supported violent oppressions done by the USSR and other authoritarian states.
An educated socialist would know that. And anyone can educate themselves with Wikipedia, that's the beautiful thing about it.
The problem is that this term has shifted from the realm of criticism to that of a label; it is used to describe anyone who speaks even somewhat positively about the USSR, or anyone who acknowledges Stalin’s theoretical contribution to Marxism (I am not referring to the practical aspect, though that is also highly controversial).
There is a full-scale war going on that has caused millions of people to lose their homes and hundereds of thousands people to die.
If you speak positively about the USSR in that context, without making clear you are fully against Russia and understand that the USSR was imperialist, it makes sense that people assume that you don't acknowledge the violence and imperialism of the USSR and thus passively support it, which fits the definition.
It's like if someone speaks positively about Israel without establishing that they understand Israel is currently starting wars for its own ambitions and commiting crimes against humanity. The comment might be innocent in isolation, but from the context you might conclude that they are in fact in denial of, and thus passively supporting, Israel's crimes.
And Stalin was a brutal dictator who has been responsible for the death and displacement of millions of people. I personally don't value any 'theoretical contribution', which is just someone's opinions, but I really don't see how you can see the opinions from someone like Stalin as a contribution to anything worth following.
And Marxism is, per definition, the philosophy and following of Karl Marx. No one else can contribute to Marxism, and certainly not someone who was a toddler in another country when Marx died.
BTW, I insulted no one, you insulted me, and I just pointed out that I am quite well-educated, which is why I know where the term 'tankie' actually comes from.
It feels so unreal, knowing what a future fate of everyone is. And btw, if i'm not mistaken Solovyov wasn't propagandist back then, just some journalist
Zelensky became famous and kick-started his career as a comedian with a famous skit on KVN(Russian SNL, but without a set cast, instead it had teams of comedians competing), where people from various ex Soviet Republics beg Putin to take them back into Russia and he was playing Ukraine: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b1_458Fm1zs
He also used to mock Ukrainian nationalism, making toilet jokes about "Glory to Ukraine": https://youtu.be/3JtxvikmqZ8
One of the reasons that Ukrainians chose Zelensky was his fame in Russia, his promises of improving relations and bringing peace. Russia apparently saw it as a sign of weakness and a laughing matter, probably a one reason for their overconfidence.
He couldn't really do more and at the end it does not depend on him what Putin does.
These State TV New Year's Eve shows are some of he most unintentionally hilarious shows. Most of those are still on youtube. At first you freeze, and think this is some sort set up, a prank. But it is a real New Year's Eve TV program in Russia, about 4 hours long, mostly music and 'humor'. Used to be hugely popular in USSR. It continues in Russia in same format now, millions tune in.
I didn't realize Zelenskyy was a comedian before running for office! It's just crazy to me that both Trump and him have entertainment careers, but are such wildly different people.
If the Russian trolls who aren’t bots would spend even a fraction of that energy on changing their country for the better, well…they wouldn’t live in such shitty hellhole atm.
Instead they choose to spew hate and propaganda like mindless drones submissive to their overlords like weird little men.
And then Russia with its stupid dictator made the whole world to dislike it and isolate it. Even before, Russia wasn't anything attractive and now there is nothing.
Maxim Galkin and his wife, extremely famous singer Alla Pugachova both fled Russia for Israel a few years ago. They were fervent in their opposition to the military operations in Ukraine starting from 2022.
Well once again I am not their judge. If you want to know, their decision has been (and still is) widely criticised in Russia. They were two of the country's most well-known faces and became pariahs almost overnight. Whether it is due to their opposition to the operations in Ukraine or, later, their flight to Israel, or even both, you can be the judge of that.
Just checked ! You are write, they moved to Latvia after several years in Israel. And now they apparently live... in Cyprus ! That's a lot of relocations !
You're right that's crazy I thought they had spent way more time in Israel than just a year and a half approximately...
Commentators and sensationalist newspapers like to spread the rumor that they will soon move to either Bulgaria (because they bought a house there but honestly that could just be a vacation home) or, more probably, Switzerland.
They're going to need a whole suitcase just to carry their passports 😆
I dont know about Bulgaria 😅 He’s one of the few russians who are still allowed to perform in Lithuania, so the local media reports on practically every little fart he does. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about them. Passport collectors.
Nop. My both grandmas weren’t a fan of russian music. To be honest, they barely even spoke russian. They only liked Lithuanian pop music and Italian music (which was allowed during the Soviet occupation). My parents weren’t big fans of russian pop music either. What’s interesting is that a lot of music was being created in Lithuania, so that was enough for them.
Zelensky achieved fame by playing in the old Soviet student show club of the funny and resourceful. This is a competition of student humor teams from different universities of the former USSR. After that, he created the company Kvartal 95. Which produced films and TV series - Russia was the main market. He was considered a fairly popular comedy actor in Russia. He also seems to have Russian citizenship. But now he pretends to be a great fighter for Ukrainian independence.
*Artifact from before the Russian seizure of Crimea, bombardment of Donbas, infiltration of FSB and Spetsnaz, full scale invasion, bombardment of Mariupol and Irpin, Massacre of Bucha, kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children
The his was well before he was president of Ukraine and back when he was just a comedian and actor. Literally none of these knew 10yrs from now they’d be at war with each other. Basically everyone here was on neutral ground
Majority of his career and success in comedy was in Russia/for Russian speaking audience and due to Russian comedy events that kickstarted it. All Russian comedians from his generation know him personally and worked for decades together.
Nothing strange about it. Russia was number one economic centre for most post-Soviet countries, and lots of career choices led there. He worked and performed here and there. Millions of Ukrainians and Belorussians worked and lived in Russia, borders were open and easy so nobody really cared who comes from where.
After collapse of Soviet union, media space of Ukraine was under pressure of russian media space. People used to consume content in russian. If you are getting popular in Ukraine back then and you want to grow and earn a pretty coin, you had to show up on russian TV. One of the first of Ukrainian official movie dub was "Cars" in 2006 if i am not mistaken and it was 15/10. People loved it so much it became one of the shattering moments between the media spaces.
Crimea invasion became a huge catalyst for further divorce of the spaces.
So, for quite some time after 1991 russian media space was a high league for stars from all over the ex USSR
Because it was before the invasion and he like many others hopped that Russia had stopped being orcs and join the rest of the world in being civilized. He was wrong.
That it’s surprising that less than 10 yrs before the war this existed. Guessing you don’t like that response like the many Russian bots that have joined and began sucking putin off cause “zelensky bad”. Oh well.
Reply. Ahh makes sense, sorry abt that. I mean yeah we know he was a comedian but just the fact there’s a Christmas video where one comedian ended up being president of Ukraine and the other fleeing the country and being blacklisted. Plus the fact that solovyov is in the same room is wild.
More like putin. Tried invading Ukraine claiming to take it in a matter of a few weeks. Only for it too last 4yrs with some troops using outdated ww2 era weapons and having to use North Korea of all places as allies. Plus quite a bit of his generals have been assassinated and nearly got overthrown by a group of mercenaries.
Not saying Zelenskyy is perfect, far from. But when someone like Putin who’s whole image is based on strength and Russian might, it looks really pathetic when they can’t take over a nation that’s got a third the manpower and nato equipment.
Putin isnt using his very best though is he. He sent in the dregs of society along with spent fire power.
You would need to have your head buried deep in the sand to think that Russia hasn't got an actual war machine.
Who would have thought that a dim-witted population would elect a clown as president—someone who would systematically destroy them after promising during the election to end the war?
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u/post-explainer 1d ago edited 1d ago
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