Opinion: Zelenskyy's comedy background is ever-present in his approach to nations

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/19/ [login to see] /opinion-zelenskyys-comedy-background-is-ever-present-in-his-approach-to-nations
A comic has become the face of courage.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, unshaven, rumple tee-shirted, speaking from the street, or walking to visit wounded Ukrainian soldiers in a hospital, where he gave them medals and got them to smile.

Gary Shteyngart, the Russian-born American novelist, told us, "Zelenskyy has shown the world that Jewish comedians are not to be trifled with. Beneath all the laughs they have a backbone of steel."

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a law degree but made his name as a comedian. He produced and starred in the series Servant Of the People, in which he played a slightly nebbish high school history teacher whose classroom oration against corruption goes viral and propels him to be elected president of Ukraine.

Four years after the series debuted, the real-life Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected president. And while political opponents have questioned if he fights corruption quite as fiercely as the role he played, there has been worldwide admiration for him as a resolute leader of a nation under attack.

He has stayed in a city under siege, refusing a U.S. offer of evacuation with, "I need ammunition, not a ride."