Ukraine is changing faster and more profoundly than ever – will it last?

Once dismissed abroad as a lightweight celebrity, Volodymyr Zelensky is breathing new life into a country hungry for change. But there are some very tough choices ahead

Since his election, Zelensky has displayed a canny popular touch, with all the timing and carriage of a showbiz professional (EPA)

Kiev looks and feels its best in the early autumn sunshine. The trees are just starting to turn; the golden domes glisten, and happy people throng the central streets and cafes. In such surroundings, it’s easy to be carried away by what feels like a tangible change of mood since Volodymyr Zelensky was elected Ukraine’s president just as the late winter turned to a frigid spring. But for once, this upbeat first impression may be more than just superficial.

Casually dismissed by many (especially in the supercilious west) as “just a comedian”, Zelensky was always a lot more than that. They said he didn’t have a programme, but he did – and it’s now clear how extensive and thought-through that programme is. They said that Ukrainian voters confused the actor’s most famous television persona – as an “ordinary person” elevated by chance to the presidency – with the real candidate. Maybe some did; many did not.

And they said voters were just protesting against what they saw as a lack of economic and political progress under the previous president, Petro Poroshenko. Well, maybe they were, but as Zelensky himself pointed out in an ebullient address to a conference I just attended in the Ukrainian capital, even if it was a protest vote, they still chose to vote for someone, and that someone was him.

Nearly six months on, Volodymyr Zelensky is riding high. His party, “Servant of the People” (named after his fictional TV show), won a majority in snap parliamentary elections in July, and almost two-thirds of MPs in the new parliament are first-timers. His domestic approval rating stands at 71 per cent – and is remarkably uniform across what was formerly a country sharply divided between east and west.

Since his election, he has displayed a canny popular touch, with all the timing and carriage of a showbiz professional. In his inaugural address all those months ago, he proposed that government officials replace the traditional presidential portrait on their office walls with pictures of their family, to remind them for whose sake they were working. In his conference address last week, he briefly left the lectern to rove around the audience with a microphone for a spot of vox pop. He has appointed a government stuffed with young professionals, who seem purposeful, loyal, and keen – as Americans say – to “serve”. The prime minister, Oleksiy Honcharuk, is 35; Mykhailo Federov, deputy prime minister for digital transformation, is 28. At 49, the foreign minister, Vadym Prystaiko, seems like a veteran.

But both Zelensky and his youthful team well understand the need to act fast in what could turn out to be a short honeymoon.

The new parliament has already approved two key pieces of legislation that have hung fire for years: the removal of MPs’ immunity from prosecution and the establishment of a special anti-corruption court. There are plans for land reform, dismantling private monopolies, and a dozen or more major infrastructure projects that will require foreign investment.

Perhaps the biggest and most promising achievement so far, however, is one for which Zelensky had personally to work and wait. Two weeks ago, Ukraine and Russia completed a carefully choreographed exchange of prisoners – 35 on either side. Those returning to Ukraine included the 24 sailors from the naval vessel captured by Russia in the Kerch Strait last November, and the filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, whose conviction on dubious terrorism charges had made him a symbol of Ukraine’s grievances against Russia.

The prisoner exchange has raised hopes, first, that there could be more exchanges to come (Ukraine says Russia is illegally holding more than 100 Ukrainians), and more ambitiously, that it might be the prelude to an eventual resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

A pledge to end the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine featured prominently in Zelensky’s election campaign, and resonated across this war-weary country. A settlement would probably do more than anything else not only to raise national morale and attract investment, but defuse wider geopolitical tensions across this part of Europe.

The prisoner exchange, though, was not without its detractors, and it illuminated the delicate line Zelensky must tread. An eloquent photograph showed the Ukrainian president standing by himself on the airport tarmac, waiting for the plane door to open and the former prisoners to emerge. This was not the image of a national leader seeking to snatch the glory, but that of a lone president risking a political move that was his and his alone.

There were those who objected that the exchange was one-sided: some said the sailors had been captured illegally and should not have been subject to an exchange. Others – fewer in Ukraine than abroad – objected that Ukraine had released Vladimir Tsemakh, regarded as a key figure in the shooting down of MH17.

Criticism in the Netherlands, home to many of the murdered passengers, was only marginally quietened by the disclosure that Dutch prosecutors had been allowed to interview him before the exchange. It also emerged that several of those freed by Ukraine were actually Ukrainians, captured while fighting on the pro-Russian side – underlining the complexity of a conflict that some consider a war between states and others a civil war.

These are not the only obstacles Zelensky faces. Future prison swaps could run into trouble as Ukraine simply runs out of Russian prisoners, while Vladimir Putin may be reluctant to give too much ground, literally and metaphorically, for fear of looking weak. He has to face public opinion, too. Putin has described Zelensky as more “realistic” than his predecessor, raising hopes of some progress in the multi-party talks on fulfilling the Minsk agreements – but talks due to be held this week were postponed. That could be bad news (indicating stalemate), or good news (behind-the-scenes bargaining to make the next meeting worthwhile).

Zelensky and his ministers are also likely to face fierce opposition to their plans to break up Ukraine’s monopolies – plans that necessarily threaten the interests of the oligarchs who still wield much political power. During the campaign, Zelensky cited the choice Putin laid down (and enforced) to Russia’s oligarchs in 2001: you can have your money or your political clout, but you cannot have both. The oligarchs of Ukraine have yet to be forced to make that decision.

The drawback is that Zelensky’s own position could be compromised by his past business ties with banker and media tycoon Ihor Kolomoiskiy. Having lived in self-imposed exile since his failing bank was forcibly nationalised in 2016, Kolomoiskiy was back in Ukraine within weeks of Zelensky’s election, apparently hoping to strike a deal. The IMF and foreign investors are adamant this should not happen. It could be Zelensky’s next big test.

And yet, and yet. Ukraine is already changing in ways faster and more profound than at any time in its 30 years since independence. This is all the more impressive for being triggered at the ballot box, not by street protests or revolution, and without outside pressure or even support – as the initially mealy-mouthed congratulations from some western capitals showed. There remains some scepticism in those quarters, as Zelensky and his team plough ahead with markedly less deference to foreign advice than before. But then again, doesn’t change, real change, have to come from within?

For the time being, Kiev seems cheerful and upbeat. Any excitement about Ukraine’s prospects, though, must still be tempered. Enthusing under the auburn chestnut trees about the post-election mood change, I was interrupted by a German professor who had just had his wallet snatched on the underground. I remain optimistic. But it was a salutary warning to be careful – and not just when using Kiev’s aged public transport.