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KRIVIY RICH, Ukraine – Sergei Milutin first saw Vladimir Zelensky, when they were both 17, compete against each other in a popular television competition for improvisation and comedy writing. Zelenski won and even Milutin, then his rival, reluctantly admitted that Zelenski was a captivating performer. He had a “crazy energy” that held your attention, he said.
Nearly three decades later, Milutin is now looking for Zelenski’s appearances every night. The evening speeches of the Ukrainian president – now deadly serious – have become routine for many in the country during nearly two months of war with Russia.
“The whole country can only fall asleep after seeing his latest video,” said Milutin, deputy mayor of Krivoy Rog, an industrial city of nearly 700,000 people in the heart of Ukraine and Zelensky’s hometown.
Zelensky has become an unshaven face of the Ukrainian resilience and challenge that has conquered the world. His daily briefings on Ukrainians ranged from selfie-style videos on the streets of Kyiv – proof that he did not flee the attacked country – to more formal addresses behind the rostrum, dressed in military green clothes. They are a must-watch, immediately shared on social media channels.
On the international stage, he challenged the West’s commitment to supporting Ukraine, criticizing countries and world leaders for their economic relations with Russia or their unwillingness to provide Ukraine with heavy weapons.
And in Krivoy Rog, where people are watching Zelensky rise from a local boy to a stellar comedian to a surprising hope for president to a brave military leader, Zelensky has come to embody the strength of the steel city’s blue-collar workers. As the war now enters its second phase – what Zelensky called the Battle of Donbass this week, the eastern region of Ukraine – people here and across Ukraine are once again looking for Zelensky to guide them through it.
“He has become a symbol not only of Ukrainian unity during the war, but also a symbol of the changing principles of the world order,” Milutin said.
Krivoy Rog did not paint murals and did not erect statues in honor of Zelensky. His presence is most directly confirmed in large yellow signs around various buildings, noting that their renovation is part of the Ukrainian president’s infrastructure initiative. Zelenski, meanwhile, tilted his hometown when he named his television production company, Quarter 95, referring to the neighborhood in which he grew up. His father is a professor at a local university and people here are impressed that Zelenski continues to live normally in the city, even after their son suffered an unexpected presidential victory in 2019.
Nowadays, city officials are urging journalists not to visit or film Zelensky’s childhood home, as this could scare off nervous neighbors who fear Russia could launch a rocket attack on the house as a form of personal revenge.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely portrayed his country’s attack on Ukraine as Zelensky’s “neo-Nazi” government. Analysts say the Kremlin’s initial plans were largely based on the assumption that Zelensky would flee in the same way that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani did last summer when the Taliban invaded Kabul. Instead, he stayed and the Ukrainians united around him.
His hometown was spared all sorts of major attacks, but even as battles shift east, Krivoy Rog sits on a key axis. It is located north of Russia’s annexed Crimea, where the Russian military has several bases, and is sort of halfway between the disputed eastern Donbass and Ukraine’s main Black Sea port of Odessa – considered a potential target.
Crouching over a map of Ukraine in his office, Alexander Vilkul, head of the Krivoy Rog Military Administration, drags a pen over the current front line between Ukraine and Russia, about 25 miles south of Krivoy Rog in the Kherson region.
Moving the pen to create a vertical line from where Russian forces were to Krivoy Rog, he said that if Russia’s plan is to try to encircle the Ukrainian military in the Donbass region, as many suspect, then Krivoy Rog is on the line. of fire as the western border point for this operation. And if the plan is to launch an offensive on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, Krivoy Rog is still a city through which Russian forces will have to pass.
“We stand in the way, no matter what,” Vilkul said. “Everything is pretty obvious on the map.”
Invented as “the longest city in Europe”, the wide roads of Krivoy Rog were built so that military planes could land on them. Vilkul said Russian forces attempted an air raid on the city in the early days of the war to use it as an “air bridge” for their paratroopers. He ordered large semi-trucks to be parked across the runway at the airport as an obstacle to landing.
Once practical protection measures were in place, Vilkul took a symbolic step. At the main World War II monument in the city center, Vilkul tied a Ukrainian flag in the outstretched hand of the soldier’s sculpture – not a delicate response to Putin’s neo-Nazi account of Zelensky’s government.
“Then we fought the German Nazis,” Vilkul said. “Well, now this is a war against the Russian fascists.
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As other industrial centers in eastern Ukraine, especially Mariupol and Kharkiv, are still under heavy bombardment, the importance of Krivoy Rog is expected to grow. ArcelorMittal, Ukraine’s largest integrated steel company, resumed production in the city last week – and part of its work is likely to be dedicated to supporting the military effort.
The opportunity to work in the industrial sector and the strong identity of the city have made it an attractive landing place for thousands of people displaced by the Donbass, a Ukrainian coal country. Some began to call this area “Curve-Bass”.
“You have to keep your word here and you have to be a strong person,” Milutin said. “Our president is like that.”
Even against the background of the war, Krivoy Rog observes a spring tradition on Saturday – something like a day to clean up the city. Volunteers planted trees in local parks and swept sidewalks. Maria Mirchenko, 37, was collecting garbage in a square in the city center. The night before, she watched Zelensky’s last speech and then went to bed, feeling reassured, even when Ukraine was plunged into uncertainty.
“I would be proud of him for being our president, even if he wasn’t from here,” Mirchenko said. “You have to be a man of steel to endure all this. It is made of steel, just like Krivoy Rog.
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