It is clear that the relationship between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin is far from being a friendly and respectful one given the current military invasion and the political tension that it has caused in East Europe.
Well, it turns out that before Zelenskyy became a president, he was already on Putin’s no friends list and all because of one of Zelenskyy’s famous roles as an actor in the TV show “Servant of the People”.
According to the new Hulu documentary “Two Men at War” by George Stephanopoulos, the successful show in Ukraine was canceled in Russia after Zelenskyy’s character joked about the Russian president.
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In “Servant of the People”, which aired from 2015 to 2019, Zelenskyy plays an idealistic school teacher who ends up becoming Ukraine president. The appeal of his character, which later gave him the tool to become a politician and the real Ukrainian president, was that he was against government corruption.
As such, in one of the episodes, Zelenskyy’s character is offered a Hublot by a salesman who tells him “Do you know, by the way, who else wears this watch? Putin,” he adds.
“Who?” Zelenskyy asks. “Putin Hublot?”
This might seem like an innocent joke but is not. According to the London Evening Standard, the pronunciation of such a phrase sounds like “Putin khuilo”, a football and protest chant used by Ukrainians against Putin.
“In one episode, Zelenskyy makes a joke about Putin, kind of an off-color joke,” said ABC News senior national correspondent Terry Morgan to Insider. “And afterward, that show was canceled in Russia. But it added a dimension of political satire, of addressing the problems in Ukraine through comedy. People loved it.”
