In 2015, Ukrainians laughed at the TV antics of Vasily Petrovych Goloborodko, a high school history teacher unexpectedly elected President of their country. Vasily was portrayed by comic actor and producer Volodymyr Zelensky—who went on to become the wartime president of Ukraine.
Simon Shuster tracked this amazing trajectory as senior correspondent for Time. But his coverage of the country and its politics long predated that. In 2014, he was the first foreign reporter to arrive in Crimea as Russian troops took over the peninsula. He reported on Zelensky’s presidential campaign, then followed the newly-elected leader into the war zone in 2021—positioning him as an ideal news source for the full-scale invasion the following year. Simon spent months embedded with the President’s team, securing unparalleled access to their compound in Kyiv. And that’s where he produced his first book, the work that brings him to Kepler’s: The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kepler’s in-house journalist Angie Coiro welcomes Simon Shuster to our stage, as we learn together the inside story of this unexpected head of a beleaguered country, with his faults, his victories, and his plans for Ukraine’s future. Don’t miss this chance to understand with much greater depth the situation in Ukraine and the man who’s rallied the West against the country’s mammoth foe.
