Video people are talking about 11x its usual comments

Zelenskyy tells Steven Bartlett why he needed "ammunition, not a ride"

In a nearly two-hour conversation, Ukraine's president moves from sleepless nights and grieving parents to Bucha, Paddington Bear and the morning the invasion began.

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Why this story? The video drew 30,554 comments in its first day, 11 times a normal first day on this channel (2,716).

President Zelenskyy: It's Time To Tell You The Truth About The War! They Found 500 Bodies!

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6:51Zelenskyy explains that he barely sleeps because of nightly calls and texts with air defense teams.
10:06Asked how he stays grounded, he names his children and wanting to set an honest example.
14:15His path from law school and comedy to dubbing Paddington Bear, then Servant of the People.
21:18He argues the war really started with the 2014 occupation of Crimea, as a creeping occupation.
45:34The morning of February 24, 2022: waking his wife, going to the office, moving into a bunker.
Trump's comment that Ukraine needs a new president, then how the war could end.

Ukraine's president barely sleeps. When Steven Bartlett asks him why, Volodymyr Zelenskyy describes nightly operational calls and messages with air defense teams. "Every night we talk," he says.

The interview, recorded on October 16, opens on the personal cost before it reaches the politics. Bartlett's first question is simply how he is doing. Bartlett writes that the answer was "It's hard," and that Zelenskyy had tears in his eyes as he described presenting posthumous awards to parents whose children had been killed. Asked what keeps him going, he answers in two words: "My kids."

Then the conversation goes back. Childhood photographs lead to Kryvyi Rih and to relatives killed by the Nazis. Next come law school, comedy, voicing Paddington Bear in Ukrainian, and Servant of the People, the series in which he played a president before becoming one. Zelenskyy argues that the war began with the occupation of Crimea in 2014, not in 2022. At a table map, he traces how Russian forces advanced toward Kyiv and were pushed back. Later chapters cover Bucha, where he describes discovering hundreds of bodies after the Russian occupation, as well as Donald Trump's comments and how a ceasefire might come about.

He also retells the moment he confirms Joe Biden offered to help him leave Kyiv. His reply has been repeated around the world: "I need ammunition, not a ride."

The episode drew more than 30,000 comments in its first day, about eleven times the usual for the channel's long conversations, while its views were in line with those episodes. Many commenters say they did not expect to see a sitting wartime president on the podcast. Several compare it with the shorter news interviews they are used to, and viewers from Finland and Ukraine join in. Others mention the voice: Zelenskyy spoke Ukrainian, and the English audio was made with AI voice technology, with his permission, based on human translation. The original Ukrainian track is available in the video's audio settings.

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