The Oddly Prescient Comedy of Volodymyr Zelensky
Standup routine from 2016 sounds like it was written for 2023
A long-time friend of mine from Russia, who now lives in Europe, messaged me last night about a standup routine he saw on YouTube, which former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky performed in 2016.
Before he was elected President of Ukraine in 2019, Zelensky had a lot of comedy hits, such as that unforgettable time in 2016 when he played the piano with his penis. There is also plenty of political satire laced with jokes about cocaine. But within this avalanche of comedy, one standup routine caught my friend’s attention because even though the comedian is doing an impression of former Ukrainian President Poroshenko, he sounds like he’s speaking about Ukraine now.
His Ukraine. The Ukraine he has helped to make (or unmake), as of 2023.
I translated the five-minute stand-up routine, subtitled and uploaded it to my YouTube channel so that you can watch it here.
The host of the show, which was filmed in the Latvian city of Jurmala, welcomes everyone to the four-day “Made in Ukraine” festival, joking that there is only enough culture to last four days. Then he introduces the “President of Ukraine — Pyotr Poroshenko.”
Music plays and Zelensky comes trotting out, rolling an easel alongside himself, swinging his hips to the beat. The audience cheers and starts clapping faster and faster while he nods approvingly and waves at them.
“Good evening, dear friends,” the comedian begins, getting into character. “My name is Pyotr, I am 52 years old. Dear Latvians, now I will tell you exactly why you should extend me some credit!”
“And I feel like you’re ready to!” he adds after more applause.
“You know, I’m a politician with a lot of political baggage,” Zelensky as “Poroshenko” says, winding up for the punchline. “For example, the baggage is so big that at Air Baltic today, I paid an extra 50 euros for the weight!”
More laughter from the crowd.
“You know, I became the president of Ukraine in a very complicated time,” he continues. “And for two years now, I’ve managed to make it stay complicated.”
Chuckles all around. “Yes,” he says.
“And… now, let’s all pretend together that I can be trusted…” he pauses, shaking his head confusingly, with a rather feral grin on his face, drawing more laughter from his fans, and then he invites everyone to “spend the next five minutes in that mood.”
“So, a little bit about my team,” he begins. “Friends, you’re not just throwing away your money. It’s not like that! I have a team of professionals!” There is a momentary flash of defensiveness across his face, then: “Like former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Super professional. An awesome organizer, one of the best crisis managers in Ukraine! That’s the truth. Just imagine, he was able to organize TWO crises in the shortest possible time!”
Widespread laughter, followed by more applause.
“And now,” he says, “I will open this briefcase.”
He opens a briefcase on the floor next to him and displays it to the audience. “It is absolutely empty…” Scattered chuckles. “It doesn’t ask anything of you…” Laughter increases. “It will just stay open, I will broadcast, and at the end of my speech, you will decide if it should be empty or full.”
“Now then,” he goes on, “what is Ukraine and why should you throw your money into it today? Sorry — ‘invest.’” Laughter.
“You know, we have a whole new level of economy,” he continues, “we have finally reached this level. This level is called begging.”
More laughter from the audience.
“It’s all very simple,” he explains, “we beg for the economic surplus of the market economies of neighboring countries. It’s an awesome scheme, tested by Gypsies.”
Laughter and applause.
“We just tried it within the framework of geopolitics and without guitars,” he quips, drawing a downcast reaction from the host and more audience laughter.
“It’s not a scam,” he explains, gesturing wildly. “It’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s very simple, I’ll explain: YOU give us your money, and later on, WE don’t give it back.”
A burst of laughter from the crowd.
“100% guaranteed!” he adds, writing it on the easel.
“Next,” he continues: “This scheme, the best of all schemes, is ‘money-goods-money.’ That is, you give us money, then goods, then money again.”
The crowd laughs, nodding at one another with appreciative smiles.
“Yes,” he says, “it’s all very simple.”
“Dear friends,” he continues, “now about the standard of living in Ukraine, I’ll make a graph.” He draws a vertical arrow and calls it the “Y” axis, which he identifies as “the income of Ukrainians.”
“Pay attention to our level,” he adds. “So now the standard of living…”
He scribbles wildly. “Look…it’s development is so dynamic! It’s growing rapidly!”
The audience laughs and claps.
“Oh, I forgot something,” He draws a horizontal arrow above the scribbles. “Here. The ‘X’ axis is here.” The standard of living is so low that it’s below the graph.
The audience laughs and claps some more.
“You know, generally, lending…” he continues, “as far as lending is concerned, Ukraine, honestly, between us, reminds me of an actress from German adult films.”
The nearby host nods his head, comprehending, as another wave of laughter surges through the crowd.
Zelensky goes on: “That is, ready to accept any quality from any country. If you don’t mind.”
The crowd roars with laughter again.
“Yes,” Zelensky-Poroshenko says. “Now, if you’re wondering how you’ll give us money… I’ve already made a schedule!”
He pulls off the first piece of paper, revealing his second drawing. “It’s very simple,” he says. “Here. Here.”
He points to 20:00 (8PM) and says “At 8:00 — you give credit.”
He points to 20:15 (8:15PM) and says “at 8:15 —a banquet.”
He points to 20:30 (8:30PM) and says “at 8:30 we go home! Thank you!”
Another wave of laughter.
“You’re probably wondering what we’ll do with your money afterwards,” he says. “I think that’s an unethical question. After all, do we ask where the cat goes after we feed it? [laughter] No, we’re just happy the cat was fed.”
“Ukraine is not just a country,” he explains, “it’s a part of the European brotherhood. Just like it happens in families, when one brother is good and the other became an alcoholic [more laughter]. Yes, that happens. He takes things out of the house. But hang on, Latvians… today WE are in this place, and tomorrow, quite possibly YOU.”
The crowd laughs and he adds: “Though most likely WE will be.”
The audience laughs, clapping.
“Now, lastly,” he finishes, “you know how we’ll pay back loans? How exactly I, as President, will pay you back? It’s very simple. Look. We take out a loan, meaning I do. We take out a loan for four years. So how it gets paid back is not my problem, it’s the problem of the next guy, after four years!”
The crowd roars with laughter. “Thank you,” Zelensky smiles, nodding.
If only he had continued on as a comedian, perhaps right now Ukraine would be drowning in laughter.
Instead, Ukraine is drowning in debt. And drowning in blood.
Military analysts such as Scott Ritter and Alexander Mercouris estimate that Ukraine has lost hundreds of thousands of lives. By the time the war ends, and some predict it will end this summer, Ukrainian casualties may climb as high as 500,000.
Half a million lives.
That’s as many lives as the United States lost during World War II.
And for what, exactly? Has Russia been weakened? Is Vladimir Putin ready to leave the Kremlin and turn himself over to the International Criminal Court? Has Ukraine managed to purge itself of the “Moskals” in Donbass and secure the racially pure ethno-state envisioned by the Banderites…?
Or, has the ghost of the Nazi collaborator, Stepan Bandera, led hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to their deaths with his fascist ideology, adding them to the hundreds of thousands of Poles, Russians, Jews and Roma people he ordered slaughtered in the 1940's?
One day, the world will know at least part of the answer.
And in that time of reckoning, perhaps, Zelensky will rue the day he quit comedy.
With special thanks to Elena Filippova for transcribing the video.
About the author:
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television.
