Putin v Zelensky: The personality clash that has defined the war in Ukraine

Might two leaders other than these have been more open to an early resolution – or even avoided armed conflict altogether? asks Mary Dejevsky

Plenty of attention has been paid to the mindset of both leaders (Getty)

One of the eternal arguments in history, as in politics, hinges on the role of the individual. How far does individual behaviour or character determine the course of events, or is it rather circumstances, including economic circumstances, that hold the key? My own view, at least since 19 August, 1991, is that an individual can indeed change the course of history. As one of those who witnessed the then Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin, clamber on to a tank outside the Russian parliament to challenge the hardline coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, there is no doubt in my mind.

Objective factors may have militated against the success of the coup, including poor organisation by the conspirators, but Yeltsin’s decision to defy the plotters transformed the odds, as well as sowing the seeds for the Soviet Union’s collapse. Jump forward more than 30 years, and the role of the individual and character may be one of the more neglected aspects of the Russia-Ukraine war. Could it be, for instance, that two leaders other than Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin might have been more open to an early resolution or even avoided armed conflict altogether? Might something in the dynamic between them actually have made the conflict worse?

Of course, plenty of attention has been paid to the mindset of both leaders. Zelensky, the democratically elected president turned war leader, whose defiance of the Russian invasion has elevated him into a celebrity around the world, offers further support for the decisive role of the individual in history. His renowned response to the US offer of refuge – that he needed “ammunition, not a ride” – determined that Ukraine would fight back as a nation; there would be no capitulation and no opening for messy guerrilla action that might risk civil war.

Whether Zelensky’s quip is genuine or not – and the balance of opinion suggests it is – barely matters now. Zelensky rose to what must be seen as the challenge of his lifetime, and has led his country from the front.

While the prevailing western view of Zelensky is as the hero, Vladimir Putin is correspondingly demonised. He is seen as exemplifying the worst of big bad Russia: as an autocrat, if not quite a dictator, as an aggressor and a bully, hell-bent on restoring an empire, as a leader heedless of his people, content to send troops to a certain death (we heard the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, talk this week for the umpteenth time about the Russian “meat grinder” in Ukraine). Contrasted like this, it is hard to see how the two could be anything but sworn enemies. There are, though, similarities, as well as differences, between the two that could make for more complicated conclusions.

It is now often forgotten than Zelensky stood for the presidency of Ukraine on a peace ticket, and won a landslide majority in large part for his promise to end the war in the east. There were reasons why he may have felt qualified to do this. He grew up in a Russian-speaking Ukrainian family; he spent part of the 1990s as a successful performer in Russia. He was a similar age to those Ukrainians dying in the Donbas fighting. He also appeared to believe, not unreasonably, that he could talk to Putin as a rational and realistic Russian leader. To an extent, his confidence was borne out.

Within months, he had secured the release of Ukrainian sailors who had been captured in a naval incident the year before. He talked to Putin regularly, and it seemed that they could – as Margaret Thatcher said of Gorbachev – do business together. Putin found Zelensky an engaging and interesting figure (as indeed very many do). But this relationship ended. Not, it appears, because of differences with Putin, but because of fears on the right in Ukraine and among Ukraine’s allies in the US and the EU that Zelensky could make unwelcome concessions to Moscow for the sake of peace.

There was no evidence for this; indeed, Zelensky showed persistence and patience in his dealings with Putin far beyond what could have been expected of a novice politician. As Zelensky became more accepted by those who had banked on the re-election of his predecessor, however, the channels with Moscow appeared to close. And so passed an opportunity to avert a war that was still unenvisaged. Yes, there are big differences in personality between the two men. Zelensky is naturally outgoing and charming, and someone – as could be seen during his election campaign and through the war – who commands great personal loyalty.

As he has shown, he is a gifted communicator, adept at reading a room. But he is also, never let it be forgotten, a highly professional actor. Putin relies on formality; he often appears uncomuicative, cold and self-contained. But he is neither a gambler nor irrational. He proceeds from a keen sense of Russia’s national and security interests – as does Zelensky with Ukraine.

Such differences do not make bargains impossible. Harder to overcome are generational differences. Now 70, Putin grew up aware of the huge losses suffered by the Soviet Union in the Second World War. He was in the middle of his KGB career when the Soviet Union collapsed. As president, he restored a degree of order to institutions and the economy and started to rebuild Russia as an international player. But his experience has been more of loss and disruption than stability. Zelensky, at 45, is a crucial quarter-century younger than Putin.

He has spent his whole adult life in independent Ukraine, with the optimism and international connections that produced two pro-European uprisings (the Orange revolution of 2004-5 and the Euro-Maidan in 2014). Zelensky’s experience of change is likely to have been far more positive than Putin’s, making for a less defensive approach to the world – until the shock of the Russian invasion.

That Zelensky may be inclined to look forward, while Putin – as can be seen from his lengthy digressions on history – tends to look back, suggests big differences in outlook that will be hard to bridge if and when the war ends. To consider the similarities and differences in character between the two leaders is not to exclude other factors.

A clash of some sort between Russia and Ukraine had arguably been in the offing since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Crimea – ceded to Ukraine in 1954 by Khrushchev – was a particular and increasing point of contention. Russia watched warily as Ukraine moved ever closer to the West through the early 2000s, but acted – with its all-out invasion – only when Ukraine appeared on the point of joining Nato.

Russia will also have observed that Ukraine’s post-Soviet nation-building relied at least in part on rejection of Russia. To the extent that rejection of Russia also entailed embracing the West, this was perceived in Moscow – and would arguably have been perceived by almost any Russian leader, not just prickly Putin – as a threat to Russia’s security.

But the fact that the two men leading their countries in war are at once so similar and so different, that there is also a personal dimension to this conflict, arguably makes a settlement more difficult than it already is. To that extent, those who say there can be no lasting resolution until after Putin has left power may not be wrong. But the same could also apply to Ukraine, given that Zelensky now owes so much of his popularity to war.

In 2019, Zelensky had hoped to use his unlikely election victory to make peace with Russia, and the force of his character made that a realistic proposition. Four years on, the prospect of the two presidents agreeing to meet around the same table is hard to imagine, because the war has hardened their character differences as well as pushing their two countries inexorably apart.