STEVEN BARTLETT; ENTREPRENEUR, SPEAKER, INVESTOR, AUTHOR AND THE HOST OF UK’S NO.1 PODCAST ‘THE DIARY OF A CEO’ – AN UNFILTERED JOURNEY INTO THE REMARKABLE STORIES AND UNTOLD DIMENSIONS OF THE WORLD’S MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE, EXPERTS AND THINKERS.
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What does it truly cost a human being to lead a nation through an existential war while the world watches from afar? President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reveals the psychological toll of continuous survival, the grim realities of geopolitical negotiation, and what keeps him still standing.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the President of Ukraine, having led the nation through its darkest historical hours following the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. A former lawyer, comedian, and actor turned wartime leader, he transitioned from satirical television to the global stage. His current administration focuses on securing Ukraine’s sovereignty, managing international diplomacy, and defending democratic freedom against imperial aggression.
In this episode, he explains:
■ The Burden of Command: How constant psychological pressure and nightly military briefings push his endurance to its limits under relentless wartime pressure.
■ The Fatal Miscalculation: Why Russia’s catastrophic military mistake came from a failure to recognize Ukrainians as a distinct people willing to fight for their freedom.
■ The Turning Point of Atrocity: How witnessing the aftermath of war in liberated towns transformed a political conflict into deeply personal tragedy where easy forgiveness became impossible.
■ The Cost of Staying: Why the refusal to evacuate Kyiv was driven by the absolute need to remain visible and prevent the nation from surrendering out of fear.
■ The Geopolitical Reality: How true diplomatic peace requires holding aggressive regimes fully accountable for their crimes rather than shifting the blame onto global energy markets.
This episode was recorded on October 16, 2026. The English audio for President Zelenskyy uses AI voice technology, with permission, based on human translation and editorial review.
For President Zelenskky’s original Ukrainian audio: Settings ⚙️ → Audio track → English (US).
“Steven Bartlett is an Entrepreneur, speaker, investor, author, Dragon on Dragon’s Den and the host of Europe’s leading podcast ‘The Diary of a CEO’.”
What he’s not known for is knowledge of Ukraine or ruZZia.
No doubt with assistance from his vast team, he made sure he was fully briefed for the interview and handled Zel really well.
It was a powerful and very moving interview with the greatest leader the world has seen since Sir Winston Churchill.
Cemil Kerimoglu :
Elon Musk must be prosecuted and imprisoned. He has blood on his hands. He is complicit in the deaths of Ukrainians by illegally throttling Ukraine’s defensive shield, which by the way, is being paid for by Poland on an active contract.
This vile, greedy, loathsome creature must be stripped of all his wealth and his companies must be broken up and/or nationalized. He must rot in prison for the rest of his ignominous life.
We know that ruZZia is an entire nation of murderers, thieves, degenerates and liars, ruled over by a fiend.
Is it a crime for the three most powerful and influential people in America, ie Trump, Vance and Musk, to have a murderous, psychotic hatred of its victim : an entire nation and its democratically elected president? It certainly should be.
Vance says the one thing he achieved that he is most proud of is the cutting off of aid to a country that is suffering from genocide from a Nazi murder gang.
Trump and Musk directly caused the deaths of Ukrainian children.
Let that sink in.
The entire Putin wing of the GOP are murderers. As people their moral compass is at the level of Charles Manson, Ted Bundy and every other serial killer combined.
Mariska den Eelden :
Isn’t it time to carve up Russia between Europe and China? Never be less ambitious than your enemy.
Reply from Cemil Kerimoglu :
Yes. That’s the spirit! Europe’s ultimate destiny is to ensure the disintegration of Russia and administer that large Eurasian expanse. At the very least everything that lies west of the Urals.
Prof Timothy Snyder :
In case there was any doubt about the general drift of this: The president of the United States has now repeatedly called for the president of Ukraine to leave office. And so the question is not how much the United States is doing for Ukraine. The question is why the United States is working to help the Russian aggressor right now.
Garry Kasparov :
On the other hand, Trump’s approval rating in Russia is skyrocketing.
Shankar Narayan :
Ukraine has agreed with the Finnish companies Nokia and ICEYE to build secure satellite communications for defense needs.
Roman Sheremeta :
The pain russians have inflicted on Ukrainians will be felt for generations. The evil they have unleashed will never be forgotten. The crimes they have committed will be punished.
Yes Roman.
And neither should we forget those in the west, such as the GOP Putin Wing, that did so much to enable the horror.
Prof. Bonk :
“Dobropillia taken. On the map, one more dot. Only you had to get to that dot alive.”
When a Chechen general posted this tribute, he accidentally exposed the truth: Russia’s latest victory was just a suicide mission for a photo op at a Ukrainian coal mine.
Colonel General Andrei Ivanayev lied directly to Putin, claiming Dobropillia fell. He ordered his men to make the lie true “at any cost.”
Geolocated footage proved the “capture” was just an infiltration team raising a flag at a coal mine before fleeing.
While Chief of Staff Gerasimov boasted to Putin about taking 1,800 km², Russia’s own frontline mappers posted Monday’s tally:
Taken: +0.0 km²
Withdrew: -0.0 km²
Total: +0.0 km²
You can lie to the President about a village, but you cannot lie to the village.
Russia’s new 8th-grade safety textbook, edited by former Defense Minister Shoigu’s daughter, tells kids: if knocked down in a crowd, grab the people running past.
When Moscow called up reservists, 80% obeyed: they grabbed the people running for the exit.
With 80% of reservists dodging the draft, Russian governors are desperate. Sevastopol is recruiting men up to 52 to hunt drones, while Tambov signs up 18-year-olds with no experience.
The job is shooting at drones with a rifle. The experience arrives on its own.
While commanders invent victories on paper, Putin’s inner circle got a wild warning.
A bankrupt TV shopping mogul with 3 passports was caught on tape over lobster in an American restaurant, telling arms bosses to stop stealing or Putin would stick an awl in their heads.
Frontline priorities are madness. Air Force pilots celebrated welding two wheels onto a pipe because factories refused to sell them tow tugs.
Meanwhile, a corrupt official was caught with $11M in cash, 114 buildings, and a private estate with a helipad and church.
In Sevastopol, the governor’s bulletin reported fuel supply was “stabilized” in bullet point one, then ordered an investigation into the city’s “garbage collapse” in bullet point two.
Stabilized in bullet one, collapse in bullet two. That is a man writing a map.
Even wildlife is fleeing Russia. Brown bears are migrating into NATO, with Finnish police logging 400+ bear calls.
As a Russian zoologist put it: bears know nothing about borders. The one export nobody sanctioned is walking across the border on its own.
The real bill lands where maps cannot hide it. Ukrainian drone strikes on Rostov fuel terminals crashed port cargo volume by 65% in a month, stranding Russia’s massive wheat exports.
A general can draw fake wins, but a governor cannot export wheat from a burning port.
While Ivanayev feeds Putin fake dots, Ukraine’s 159th Brigade quietly raised its flag in Karaichne, a village Moscow claimed to take in May.
A dictatorship can lie about its ground, but fake map dots do not stop real flags from rising.
https://professorbonk.substack.com/p/ukraine-closed-russias-ports-and?r=3g6p5r&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Craig Unger :
This is Steve Witkoff’s ninth visit to Moscow to negotiate a peace deal. As reported by Polish TV’s TVP, within 72 of each of those nine visits, Russia has launched a major missile attack on Kiev. I’m just saying…..
Marijn Markus :
🙄 Witkoff calling Putin a “humanitarian”
“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again.”
Remember that because of Putin, thousands of Ukrainian civilians are dєad, hospitals lie in ruins, and people are suffeгing from hungeг, toгтure and Russian terrorisм.
That’s not humanitarian at all.
Roman Sheremeta :
Last night, Putin delivered yet another “positive response” to Ukraine’s peace proposals. Trump is right: Putin undoubtedly wants peace, is ready for it at any moment, and works every day to bring it about. The only problem is that it is a peace in which there is no place for us. No wonder Ukraine refuses to accept such a peace.
We want to live, and we do not want to die. Some call this outrageous, some call it resentment, and others call it stubbornness in negotiations. Ukraine is accused of provoking the war itself – through its weakness or, conversely, its determination to join the EU and NATO; through its alleged suppression of the Russian language, culture, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (I live in Kyiv, where the language and culture are freely expressed, whether you like it or not); through its unwillingness to tolerate authoritarianism and corruption; through its role in the collapse of the Soviet Union (which Putin and many Russians consider “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”); through its refusal to recognize itself as a zone of exclusive Russian interests and a “younger sister.”
Through its very existence: she was walking in the wrong neighborhood and wearing the wrong clothes.
None of this matters. When there is a predator and a victim, an excuse will always be found. Gleiwitz, the Reichstag fire, and the FSB-linked hexogen explosives in Russian apartment buildings before the Chechen War are evidence of this.
Ukraine’s refusal to capitulate is a thorn in the side of all the global powers. It proves that the strong do not necessarily defeat the weak when the weaker side fights for what is right and defends its own life. David defeats Goliath despite the difference in weight and Goliath’s expensive bronze armor. Size, money, and power do not equal truth or victory.
This explains Trump’s hatred and his desire to diminish Ukraine by telling stories about a thousand tanks that got stuck in the mud because of a Russian general’s mistake. Let me remind you that it was Ukrainians who dug the Black Sea, which is why the cruiser Moskva sank there. Otherwise, it would never have happened.
The belittling of our resilience, our desire to live, and our refusal to surrender is nothing new to us. We will continue to hear such voices both from outside and from within.
Nobody in the world needs Ukraine, especially a strong Ukraine, except Ukrainians themselves. (In reality, everyone needs Ukraine, but we still have to convince them of that.)
“We want to live. Our neighbors want to see us dead. This leaves very little room for compromise.”
That is Golda Meir.
And another quote from her: “It is better to receive notes of protest than telegrams of condolence.”
I haven’t written anything new. You have read all of this many times before. I just wanted you to think about it once again.
Source: translated from the text of Valeriy Pekar
Garry Kasparov :
Trump is just weeks from a midterm election in which his Republican Party is expected to lose. Vladimir Putin is watching events from over Trump’s shoulder, and knows that a Democratic Congress could thwart many of his designs in Washington come January. These next three months are therefore critical.
April 2023 :
Former US president Bill Clinton has expressed regret in an RTÉ interview about his role in persuading Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons in 1994.
Mr Clinton suggested that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Kyiv still had its nuclear deterrent.
Mr Clinton addressed the ongoing war in Ukraine when he spoke to Prime Time about his role in the Northern Ireland peace process and assessed recent developments.
“I feel a personal stake because I got them [Ukraine] to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons,” he said.
In January 1994, Mr Clinton signed a tripartite agreement with the then presidents of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, and Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, to eliminate the arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons which remained on Ukrainian soil after the fall of the Soviet Union. The United States was also party to a related agreement later in the same year, which included Russian commitments to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
These commitments were broken in 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, and further shattered when it began a wider war against Ukraine last year.
“I knew that President Putin did not support the agreement President Yeltsin made never to interfere with Ukraine’s territorial boundaries – an agreement he made because he wanted Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons.
“They were afraid to give them up because they thought that’s the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia,” Mr Clinton said.
“When it became convenient to him, President Putin broke it and first took Crimea. And I feel terrible about it because Ukraine is a very important country.”
Mr Clinton said western support for Ukraine should remain steadfast.
“I think what Mr. Putin did was very wrong, and I believe Europe and the United States should continue to support Ukraine. There may come a time when the Ukrainian government believes that they can think of a peace agreement they could live with, but I don’t think the rest of us should cut and run on them.”
Mr Clinton’s admission of regret was “very frank,” University of Galway law lecturer, Larry Donnelly, told Prime Time.
“It is understandable in light of everything that has happened why he feels that regret that he does,” Mr Donnelly said. “At the same time, it is understandable why he did what he did, trying to denuclearise the world, trying to improve relations and engage constructively with Russia…Of course it is also understandable why the Ukrainian people are angry about that.”
Mr Donnelly also said it was surprising that the US role in denuclearising Ukraine “hasn’t featured more prominently in the debate in the United States about whether supporting Ukraine is the right thing, or not, to do.
“A lot of Americans say, ‘this is a problem very far away from us, why should we be involved,’ but I think a lot of them could be moved at a moral level if they saw the United States’ role in what happened in 1994” when Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons.
From RTE
https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2023/0404/1374162-clinton-ukraine/?fbclid=IwdGRjcAVHxy5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mBWZkaWQWUQ3VQiabBjX9R5ci0qPEy2Sc3tFpYHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7EC3WW2lAv2XBRZiInC_9NZkcm0zMF3YRiLx_bMjgALS-hvO5xsz7SqHY7Jg_aem_Q7EQMmwc0qMIZ4EOtxBaBg
Shaun Pinner :
“A senior Ukrainian commander told me he lost more than $1 million in drones the first night StarShield went out. The next 3 days, speeds remained so unstable they canceled almost all ops striking RU logistics to protect Ukrainian infantry in the kill zone”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/world/europe/starshield-starlink-ukraine.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KVE.bUiV.u_YBlM0MuAAB&smid=nytcore-ios-share