Zelensky wanted to contract coronavirus on purpose ‘to curb panic’

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to catch COVID-19 to curb the virus-related panic in the Ukrainian society, he told Ukrainska Pravda, an online media outlet.

On June 9, Ukrainska Pravda published a long piece reflecting on two days from Zelensky’s life as it was observed by their journalists. It’s a preview of the interview that will be published later.

‘Let me get infected’

Zelensky told the reporters that he is “absolutely not afraid” of coronavirus. He said he was fearless to an extent that he was ready to catch the virus with one purpose, as he puts it, to calm down the people.

“There is no depression like this is plague,” Zelensky says in a video recorded by Ukrainska Pravda. “We have all forgotten now but in the very beginning, there was a moment, a very scary one when people were believing that we would all die.”

According to Zelensky, the idea of deliberately getting infected with coronavirus came to his mind when the pandemic, which had started in China in December and soon spread over the globe, reached Ukraine. It has since killed 810 and infected 27,856 Ukrainians as of June 9.

“I said to our (team): ‘Let me get infected, we will isolate me at Bankova’,” Zelensky said, referring to the building of the President’s Office in central Kyiv while reproducing the conversation he had with his aides.

However, the idea was instantly rejected by the president’s aides.

“They said this was over the top,” Zelensky said.

“My family would not have forgiven me for sure. They would have said that I was insane and I think they would have been right,” he added.

‘Roads are shit’

Zelensky’s first-year in office came on May 20. Replying to the journalists’ question on what impressed him when he became president, Zelensky said: “First of all, you see that almost everything is destroyed.”

“Simply speaking, our country is fucked?” one of the journalists asked.

“Totally. Totally!” Zelensky agreed and added that health care, education, and infrastructure were among the most problematic areas.

The journalists followed Zelensky on his two-day trip to Khmelnytsky, a city 320 kilometers west from Kyiv, on June 3-4. During one of the episodes of the released video, Zelensky is in a car talking to the journalists while the driver is going around pits on the road.

“In my opinion, we just do not have normal roads in the country (at all),” Zelensky commented while his driver was maneuvering around the potholes. “Well, the local roads are shit. I do get this. We need to build. We need to build all the time and never stop. Build, build, build constantly! This will bring an outcome.”

While this conversation was taking place in the president’s car, Deputy Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko was shown calling the chief of Ukravtodor, the State Agency of Automobile Roads, and telling him to start looking for money to repair this specific road in Khmelnytsky Oblast.

‘Ocean of information’ vs. ‘lake’ 

Zelensky said that Russia’s war in the Donbas, which has killed 13,000 people since its outbreak in 2014, is “a maze.”

“But in this, I’m sure, there is an exit,” Zelensky said.

Talking about critics of his policy regarding the war in the Donbas, Zelensky suggested a metaphor.

“Before I became the president, my conclusions (regarding the Donbas) were comparable to this: You think that you are swimming in the lake full of information but it turns out to be an ocean,” he said.

Now, Zelensky said, because of his status he is in an “ocean of information,” hence he “does not react much to the people who are bathing in the lake.”

“The depth is different,” Zelensky said. “There is one goal for both the lake and the ocean swimmers. We are all Ukrainians, we are from one country. We want the same thing. Plunge here to me, I’m ready. Plunge and start helping me here.”