Katty Kay: The danger of wishful Western thinking
In the second episode of Volodymyr Zelensky's very funny comedy series, The Servant of the People, one of the spooky bad guys says of Zelensky's character, the newly elected President of Ukraine: "He's known for being iron clad and brave."
That was the point I reached for the remote, pressed pause, and took a deep breath.
The 2015 series has just starting airing here in America, and for those of us who are new to it, it's a bit surreal. Every time you catch yourself chuckling, you then start to feel sad. It's emotionally draining. I find I can't watch more than an episode at a time and I do so with a certain dread. Friends have told me they can't watch it at all.
And it's not because it's bad. It's a good show and Zelensky is a talented actor. He's charming and self-deprecating. No, it's hard to watch, because we fear what's going to happen to the real President of Ukraine.
There's another scene in that same episode where the new president, Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko, is introduced to his security detail body double. A smarmy political flunky turns from the double to Zelensky and says, "He'll die from a sniper bullet for you," then he laughs out loud at Zelensky's look of horror. "But," the flunky chortles, "I think it won't come to that."
And then your stomach turns, because right now it feels like the whole Western world is watching Ukraine and just praying that it won't indeed come to that.
