Shame & Inspiration: Ukraine prez Volodymyr Zelensky's virtual world tour weaponised vs Russia

tech.hindustantimes.com:

As a professional comedian until three years ago, Volodymyr Zelensky knows to tailor his material for different audiences. As president of a nation at war, he’s deployed that skill to great effect on a virtual world tour, inspiring and shaming in equal measure.

Beamed onto giant screens in the National Diet of Japan and, later, France’s National Assembly on Wednesday, Zelensky invited legislators to connect with Ukraine’s plight by playing to their own history and self-image, just as he has now done at least ten times since Russia invaded Ukraine exactly a month ago. 

For most leaders, to address the chamber of another democracy is an honor granted once in a political lifetime, if at all. Zelensky drew standing ovations even in Berlin, despite his sharp criticisms, recalling Germany’s World War II guilt as he asked the Bundestag to stop putting business interests over Ukrainian lives so as not to again “have to feel ashamed one day.”

Badly out-gunned by Russia on land, in the air and at sea, the information war is the one arena in which Ukraine is clearly winning. That’s thanks in no small part to Zelensky’s international road show, made possible by the post-Covid normalization of video conferencing, as well as the grim star quality of Zelensky’s unshaven, Khaki-clad -- and routinely blunt -- appeals. 

“This is just huge,” said Alastair Campbell, who as the communications chief of former Prime Minister Tony Blair organized the first ever address to the French legislature by a British leader, in 1998. “We spent an enormous amount of time preparing the speech, the French had their drummers out and I don’t think I had ever seen Tony as nervous.”

Zelensky has been pulling that off multiple times a week, securing invitations by