Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, and his speech to the European Parliament on March 1, Volodymyr Zelensky has intensified his international diplomatic campaign. After a week of daily interventions, before the American Congress, the German lower house and the Swiss, Israeli and Italian parliaments, the President of Ukraine speaks before the National Assembly and the French Senate on Wednesday March 23, at 3 p.m. time.
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Each time given a standing ovation, the Ukrainian president always intervenes by videoconference from Ukraine, in his language (simultaneously translated), as a warlord, dressed in military khaki and seated in front of his country’s flag. Its modus operandi is well established. Everywhere, he applies the same recipe.
Personalized historical references
At each of his speeches, Volodymyr Zelensky personalizes his remarks according to his audience. It invokes significant events or popular personalities, known to the greatest number, for example former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and playwright William Shakespeare outside the British House of Commons.
In the American Congress, he recalls how much the United States holds “pages that allow you to understand Ukrainians”such as the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 or the famous speech “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King.
In front of the Bundestag, he implores “Destroy This Wall” erected in Central Europe; a reference to the speech of US President Ronald Reagan, who in 1987 asked his Russian counterpart to destroy the Berlin Wall.
Some of his references are not unanimous. Before the Israeli Knesset, Volodymyr Zelensky urges Israel to “make your choice”emphasizing his own Jewish heritage. “The Kremlin is using Nazi terminology, the Nazis were talking about ‘final solution’ for the Jewish question, you will never forget that and now Moscow is talking about ‘final solution’ for Ukraine”, he hammers. A comparison with the Holocaust judged “scandalous” by Israeli Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel.
A common appeal to emotion
“These references ‘speak’ to different audiences and provoke strong emotions, analysis for franceinfo Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). They appeal to other peoples’ deepest traumas, to their historical memory, to arouse empathy and a desire to support Ukrainians against repeats of historical tragedies.”
“Communication is the main weapon of the Ukrainians in this war, and Zelensky masters it wonderfully. It has already helped him win the informational and moral war.”
Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, researcher at Ifriat franceinfo
Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized empathy to raise awareness of the Ukrainian cause in one speech in particular: the one before the US Congress on March 16. For two minutes and thirty seconds, out of a total of six minutes broadcast by American television CNN (in English), the Ukrainian president broadcast a video bringing together shocking images of Russian bombardments in Ukraine, resuscitation of wounded, bodies of dead children.
“You have to be aware that Ukrainian society and its political class are going through a traumatic shock. For Ukraine, we are in a historic moment, recalls Alexandra Goujon, lecturer in political science at the University of Burgundy, author of Ukraine, from independence to war (ed. Blue Rider, November 2021). The broadcast of the images is commensurate with what many Ukrainians are feeling. They are afraid of being forgotten, abandoned, when they know what they owe to Western support. These images are then used as an argument to justify the requested help”.
Concrete requests to each
Two objectives motivate the Ukrainian president’s diplomatic offensive, according to Alexandra Goujon. First of all, “ensure the support of Western partners, in particular military support”. Next, “ensure the firmness of Westerners vis-à-vis Russia in terms of sanctions”.
The Ukrainian President makes specific requests to each Parliament. At the American, the creation of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. In Germany, stopping the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, considered by Zelensky as “the cement for the new wall” that would separate East from West, thus recalling the specter of the Cold War. After having drawn up the comparison with the children of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the warlord spoke of the fate of “97 children” Ukrainians killed in shelling “schools, hospitals, homes”.
Diplomatic work begun a long time ago
With one speech per day the week of March 14, the pace was sustained. But these interventions are not new for the Ukrainian president, underlines Alexandra Goujon. “Since his election in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky has been doing ‘active’ diplomacy. Even before the war, he was on the move a lot, retrace Ukraine specialist. He knows that the support of Western partners is fundamental in his relationship with Russia.”
His speeches before Western parliaments do not necessarily result from Ukrainian solicitations. Speaking before the European Parliament is, for example, “quite standard and normal”, recalls Olivier Costa, research director at the CNRS. “At each monthly session, a person – head of state, activist, president in exile, pope… – is invited to speak, often in connection with a current event.”
Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to French parliamentarians on Wednesday is, on the contrary, “something special”, highlights on franceinfo Valéria Faure-Muntian, LREM MP for Loire and originally from Ukraine. The interest of the Ukrainian president is, according to Olivier Costa, to have “opinion relays with the media and the executive, but also to convince people to vote on support plans and therefore budgets, at the national level”. The specialist from the European Parliament concludes: “You have to have allies.”