Vasily Goloborodko’s Nightmare
As a fan of the Ukrainian television series, Servant of the People, I can’t help but be struck by the irony of an actor who played a president transitioning into an actor who became a president. Scripts, however, are one thing. Reality is something completely different. And Volodymyr Zelensky’s last scene, unlike the character of Vasily Goloborodko he played in the series, will not have a happy ending, but rather be the stuff of nightmares.
By any standard, the tenure of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been quite a ride.
In March, 2018, coming off a three-season run as the star of the popular Ukrainian television series Servant of the People, Zelensky’s handlers filed paperwork which established a new political party in Ukraine, Servant of the People, which was little more than a ploy to politicize the role played by Zelensky in the series, an everyday Ukrainian man named Vasily Goloborodko—who went on to become President of Ukraine—so that the new Ukrainian “everyman”—Zelensky—could turn theater into reality.
The gambit worked, and in April 2019 Zelensky was elected over the unpopular incumbent, Ukrainian chocolate oligarch Petro Poroshenko.
Although he campaigned heavily on a platform that promoted peace with Russia over the ongoing fighting in the breakaway Donbas region, within weeks of becoming president, Zelensky had taken a hard tack to the right, promising to wage war with Russia over the disputed territories.
And in February 2022, the actor-turned-President got his wish.
He immediately fell into his designated role, operating from a script written for him by his western handlers (it was the CIA who manufactured the now-famous line, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride”), rejecting an alleged offer from the United States to evacuate him from Kiev, which was at the time under attack by Russia.
As it turns out, both the offer of a ride and Zelensky’s sharp retort were works of fiction—neither occurred but rather were brought to life by a compliant media which published verbatim the narrative fed to them by unnamed US intelligence officials working in the US Embassy in Kiev.
But the CIA script writers could not make the military pressure placed on Ukraine by the Russian Special Military Operation go away, and less than a week after the Russian assaults began, Zelensky was compelled to dispatch a delegation to Gomel, Belarus, to begin negotiations designed to bring the conflict to an end. These negotiations eventually moved to Turkey where, in late March, the two sides had hammered out a comprehensive peace agreement, the so-called “Istanbul communique,” which would have brought the conflict to an end on terms which, in retrospect, were extremely favorable to Ukraine.
But Zelensky’s new western production had decided that the pilot of a Russian-Ukraine conflict was too profitable not to be converted into a series, and so Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the UK, flew to Kiev and convinced the actor-turned-president that the show must go on.
And go on it did.
The collective west, now fully backing the new Zelensky series as an action-based drama, poured billions of dollars into production, transforming a simple tale of surviving against all odds into a David-versus-Goliath epic.
Zelensky himself was recast as a Churchillian figure, a larger-than-life character whose exhortations to “fight them on the beach” quickly captured the imagination of the world.
The first season was a huge success, with Zelensky leading his embattled troops to victory, reclaiming lost territory in Kharkov and Kherson, and setting up a climactic second season which would see Ukraine roll on to victory.
The producers went all out promoting the second season, complete with trailers depicting the victory of Ukraine’s military over Russia in what was being billed as the “2023 Summer Counteroffensive.”
But production ran into some insurmountable obstacles. The budget for the “2023 Summer Counteroffensive” was more than the underwriters were willing to spend, and then there was a writer’s strike which saw major changes in the script—rather than delivering a dramatic victory, the drama would devolve into a bloody stalemate.
The problem was the audience had been sold on the original script, which had been reflected in the trailers. Denied their victory, viewership began to decline, and money for the show’s grandiose episodes declined.
Unable to provide victory, the screenwriters worked on turning the action drama into a character-driven show. This required re-writing the Churchillian figure Zelensky had grown accustomed to playing into a more tragic character who saw his dreams of glory slip through his fingers.
Season Three tried to squeeze as much entertainment from this approach, but to no avail.
The producers were being bombarded with counter-offers of new programing, including a big-budget concept surrounding a tale of reconciliation between brothers who had once been friends, but were now violently opposed to one another.
The real-life Servant of the People had lost its appeal.
Its underwriters were cutting off the funds.
Producers and screenwriters were jumping ship to join the team pushing the tale of brotherly reconciliation.
Which left the remaining production team with the problem of how to wrap up not only Season Three, but the series as a whole.
Back in 2018 the producers of Servant of the People solved their problem by transitioning from the screen to reality, turning Vasily Goloborodko into Volodymyr Zelensky.
They wrote nightmare scripts, creating scenes that depicted the rise and fall of Zelensky’s character, only to have the series end in victory.
But there isn’t a screenwriter in existence who can turn the real-life drama of Voldymyr Zelensky into a happy ending.
Goloborodko’s nightmare, which began Season Three of the television version of Servant of the People, has become Zelensky’s reality—hemmed in on all sides by people who seek to depose him, with no way out.
Instead of a carefully scripted narrative, Zelensky has turned to drug-fueled impromptu ad libs which have turned tragedy into farce.
Where once the world cheered on the Churchillian hero Zelensky portrayed, they now have nothing but pity for the despicable character Zelensky plays today.
We are now in Season Four.
There is one last act to be had before the series can be closed down, and the producers are considering competing scripts.
One has the tragic hero flee to a life in exile, where he can reflect on the causes of his collapse.
The other, written by admirers of the HBO series The Sopranos, has a more bloody, fatal ending for the everyman-turned-dictator.
But the bottom line is Season Four of the real-life version of Servant of the People will not end well for Zelensky.
And the reality is none of those who once sold him as the second coming of Churchill will give a damn.
Good thinking.
Good writing.
Thank you.
Let’s also remember thatZelensky was US/UK puppet, full of cocaine and that the entire media was consolidated by brutal force in a monolith media — fully financed by CIA. That CIA-funded (via US A.I.D.) media was then endlessly quoted by US state media to indoctrinate US public