His apparent victory is the latest in the trend of outsiders harnessing TV and social media to out-muscle unpopular establishments. It’s likely to reverberate in Russia and across the former …
KIEV, Ukraine — Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky swept to victory in Ukraine’s presidential election Sunday, an exit poll showed, as millions of voters weary of war and economic hardship rebuked the ruling elites and ushered in fresh uncertainty for their geopolitically pivotal nation.
Zelensky’s experience in politics amounts to playing the Ukrainian president on a popular sitcom. But amid a continuing war in eastern Ukraine, economic travails and popular revulsion over allegations of government corruption, Zelensky’s anti-establishment, antiwar and reformist message captured the support of a wide cross-section of the country.
In Russia, both pro-Kremlin and independent news media broadcast live feeds of Friday’s stadium debate between Poroshenko and Zelensky, a spectacle offering a striking contrast to the lack of a domestic challenge to Putin. “We want it like in Ukraine,” said a headline in the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.
“This is a bright candy wrapper,” Poroshenko said in the debate in Kiev’s Olympic Stadium on Friday, referring to Zelensky. “There are Russians inside, and fugitive oligarchs.”
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