WATCH: Volodymyr Zelenskyy Mocked Vladimir Putin in Comedy Sketch 8 Years Before Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
Nov. 27 2023, Published 6:00 p.m. ET
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mercilessly mocked Vladimir Putin in a comedy sketch that aired eight years before Russia invaded Ukraine, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a surprising development to come after Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a comedy sketch featuring Zelenskyy from 2014 resurfaced online this week.
According to the sketch obtained and shared by Daily Mail on Monday, Zelenskyy – then a popular Ukrainian comedian – played the role of Putin’s long-suspected lover, Alina Kabaeva, in the eight-year-old clip.
The farce was structured around the premise that Putin returned home late from work, and his mistress was upset – at which point the Russian leader was scolded by “Kabaeva.”
The skit also mocked the Russian military’s activity in Crimea at the time, as well as disgraced Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
But while the 2014 comedy sketch appeared to be nothing more than a joke that one might see on Saturday Night Live, some sources suggested that the clip marked the moment that Putin turned against the comedian who would ultimately become Ukraine’s president in May 2019.
“Not a single comedian in Russia would ever dare to compose such a sketch, and especially not a single TV channel would show it,” Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar recently wrote regarding Zelenskyy’s Putin-Kabaeva skit.
“Joking about Putin has long been unacceptable here, especially about his personal life,” the writer continued. “You can't talk about [Kabaeva] at all. This is a general rule for all media.”
“Only once, back in 2008, the tabloid Moscow Korrespondent wrote that Putin was getting a divorce to marry Kabaeva, and the newspaper was immediately closed,” Zygar revealed. “Since then, not a single Russian media outlet has dared to touch on the topic of the president's family life.”
Zygar, in his new book War and Punishment: How Russia Destroyed Ukraine, also confirmed that the 2014 Putin-Kabaeva sketch was the “very moment when Putin first learn[ed] about the existence of the comedian.”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Putin ultimately launched an invasion into Ukraine in February 2022 – approximately eight years after Zelenskyy’s sketch first surfaced.
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Zelenskyy recently claimed that Russia has tried to assassinate him “five or six times” since the invasion first launched last year.
"The first [assassination attempt] is very interesting, when it is the first time, and after that it is just like Covid,” the 45-year-old leader explained during an interview earlier this month.
"First of all, people don't know what to do with it and it's looking very scary,” Zelenskyy continued. “And then after that, it is just intelligence just sharing with you details that one more group came to Ukraine to attempt this."
"I don't know, really I don't know,” he added regarding the assassination attempts against his life. “I think not less than five or six. They will use any instruments they have."