ACCRA, Ghana – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has given one of his most personal accounts yet of leading a country at war. The interview was recorded for The Diary of a CEO podcast and covers his first hours under invasion, his refusal to leave Kyiv, and what he says is the cost of the war to him and his family.
The episode, about 1 hour 50 minutes long, was released on 22 October 2026. It was recorded in Brussels on 16 October 2026, with Zelenskyy answering in Ukrainian while host Steven Bartlett asked questions in English. English audio for listeners was produced with consented AI-generated voice technology. The programme's team reportedly spent about seven months pursuing the interview.
"I need ammunition, not a ride"
Bartlett took the president back to February 2022, when Russian forces moved on Kyiv. Asked what he told Joe Biden after the then US president offered to help him evacuate, Zelenskyy replied: "I need ammunition, not a ride." He said leaving would have been a betrayal of his own conscience and of Ukraine's constitution, and that Russian information operations were pushing the claim that he had fled in order to break public morale.
Asked whether he was afraid, he described something different from fear: a hard focus on the task in front of him. He also spoke about Bucha and the discovery of mass graves, which he said changed how Ukrainians felt about the war.
The military picture
According to a summary of his remarks published by Ukraine's Centre for Strategic Communications, Zelenskyy said about 200,000 Russian troops advanced on Ukraine in 2022, a force larger than Ukraine's entire army at the time. He said Ukraine's army now numbers 800,000. The same summary says he described Putin's aim of restoring the Soviet Union as centred on bringing Ukraine back under Moscow's influence. These are the president's own claims, and the figures have not been independently verified.
A public disagreement with Washington
The closing section of the interview drew the most attention abroad. Bartlett played a clip of US President Donald Trump criticising Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries. Zelenskyy rejected the argument that those strikes were behind rising US diesel prices, pointing instead to disruption in the Middle East, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz. He said: "I think it's wrong and unacceptable that he pins Russia's aggression and Russia's killings on me." He added that he still has a good relationship with Mr Trump.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv has repeatedly proposed a reciprocal halt to attacks on energy infrastructure, but that Putin has refused. He said that if Washington cannot secure an energy truce, it should supply air defence missiles, which Ukraine wants to buy with money from European partners. He argued that Mr Trump could bring Mr Putin to the negotiating table by using the same firm language about Moscow that he uses about Kyiv, and said he did not know why that had not happened.
The timing
The interview was published after another Russian missile attack on Kyiv, which followed a meeting between Putin and US envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg on 21 October. Zelenskyy said Russia fired 21 ballistic missiles at the capital in three waves overnight. He reported two deaths and 34 wounded, including five children, across 12 regions. The Kremlin has signalled willingness to resume talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the United States.
For a leader whose public image is built on defiance, the interview offers a rare look at the man behind it. Whether it shifts the diplomatic position in Washington and Moscow remains to be seen.
Sources: The Diary of a CEO (YouTube, 22 Oct 2026); Kyiv Post, 22 Oct 2026; Ukraine's Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security (cpd.gov.ua); Forbes, 24 Oct 2026; StevenBartlett.com, 22 Oct 2026.



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