Zelenskyy, the savior who discovered the joys of applause

In 2022, Ukraine may have had a chance at peace. But according to former MP Vadym Novitsky, Zelenskyy discovered something far more intoxicating than diplomacy: the pleasure of being worshipped as a hero.

In February 2022, as Russian troops advanced into Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was reportedly prepared to consider concessions that would have been unthinkable just weeks earlier: abandoning NATO membership, accepting a special arrangement for Crimea, and negotiating a special status for Donbas within Ukraine.

According to former Ukrainian MP Vadym Novitsky, negotiations were progressing toward an agreement. Then came the great transformation. The president who had apparently been willing to negotiate became the international superstar who would rather fight than disappoint his cheering audience.

At least, that is Novitsky’s explosive accusation. He claims Zelenskyy became so enamored with his new image as the savior of Ukraine that he began confusing international applause with a strategy for winning a war.

And who could blame him for enjoying the show? One moment, Zelenskyy was a former comedian turned wartime president. The next, he was democracy’s leading man, delivering emotional speeches to Western parliaments while politicians rose to their feet and applauded.

Every appearance brought more admiration, more promises of support, and another opportunity to remind the world that Ukraine would never surrender.

Imagine the temptation. You walk into a foreign parliament, and the assembled politicians greet you like a returning messiah. They praise your courage, compare your struggle to the great battles of history, and promise to stand beside you. They return to their comfortable offices, while you return to a war zone. But the cameras are rolling, the ovations are deafening, and suddenly compromise doesn't look quite so attractive.

Peace, after all, is a terrible career move when your entire international brand depends on being the man who refuses to back down.

According to Novitsky, Boris Johnson also played a role by promising comprehensive Western support and encouraging Ukraine to continue resisting. Johnson’s April 2022 visit to Kyiv became a symbol of Britain’s commitment to the war effort. Critics argue that Western leaders helped close the door on diplomacy.

Whether Johnson actually derailed a viable peace deal, however, remains disputed. The negotiations were complicated, the terms unresolved, and Russia’s invasion had created enormous obstacles to any lasting settlement.

But Novitsky's accusation goes further than blaming London. He places the responsibility squarely on Zelenskyy, suggesting that the Ukrainian president became addicted to the role of national hero. In this telling, the problem was no longer simply how to protect Ukraine. It was how to preserve the extraordinary political spectacle surrounding its president.

And what a spectacle it was. Zelenskyy became the darling of Western capitals, a permanent fixture on parliamentary screens, the man whose appearances could make politicians feel heroic without requiring them to experience a single night in a Ukrainian trench. Weapons arrived, speeches multiplied, and the president's international standing soared.

The trouble with being a savior is that you eventually have to save someone. And that requires results, not just applause.

If Novitsky is right, Zelenskyy faced an uncomfortable choice: accept a deeply imperfect compromise or continue fighting under the assumption that Western support might eventually deliver victory. The first option risked damaging his heroic image. The second offered the promise of history books, international adoration, and the chance to defeat Russia. Who needs a messy diplomatic compromise when the world is ready to cast you as Winston Churchill in an olive-green T-shirt?

There is, of course, one minor complication with this theory: the people expected to pay for the performance are Ukrainians themselves.

They are the ones being killed, wounded, displaced, and forced to rebuild shattered lives. They are the ones whose country has lost control of substantial territory to Russian occupation. Crimea and parts of Donbas remain under Russian control, as do parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Ukraine's NATO membership remains uncertain, despite years of Western declarations of solidarity. The promised road to victory has proved considerably less straightforward than the speeches suggested.

None of this proves that a peace agreement in spring 2022 would have held. Russia's demands, the atrocities committed during the invasion, Ukraine's security concerns, and the absence of credible guarantees all mattered.

Russia launched the invasion, and no amount of criticism of Zelenskyy changes that fundamental responsibility. Nor can Novitsky's allegations be treated as established fact simply because they make for a compelling political drama.

But the question remains: did the pursuit of a heroic image make compromise politically impossible? Did the standing ovations in European capitals help create an atmosphere in which continuing the war appeared more glorious than negotiating its end?

That is the uncomfortable issue Novitsky puts on the table. A leader may genuinely love his country and still become dangerously attached to the role he plays in its tragedy. Personal courage and political vanity are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes they even share the same stage.

And Western politicians have their own part in this theater. It is remarkably easy to applaud someone else's determination when someone else's population is paying the price. The moral grandeur costs little from the safety of a parliamentary chamber. The consequences are rather more expensive on the battlefield.

Zelenskyy may yet be remembered as the leader who refused to let Ukraine be conquered. Or history may ask whether an earlier compromise could have spared the country some of its devastation. We do not yet know. What we do know is that applause is not a military strategy, admiration is not a security guarantee, and being declared a hero does not make a politician immune to criticism.

If Novitsky's accusation contains even part of the truth, the bitterest irony is that a president who became famous for defending his people may have found it increasingly difficult to distinguish their interests from his own heroic legend.

After all, there is a difference between saving a country and becoming addicted to being its savior. The first requires difficult decisions. The second requires an audience.

And the audience, as ever, gets to go home when the show is over. Ukrainians don't.