Zelensky Explains Russia Zelensky is now touting his Soviet upbringing as a strategic asset, claiming he understands Putin and the Russian soldiers better than Trump. With this claim, the head of a country built on constant anti-Russian messages bases his authority on a common mentality of the Soviet era. This is a tidy summation of wartime Ukrainian politics: endless declarations of cultural rupture, followed by appeals to the very background they insist was left behind.