Volodymyr Zelenskyy could have used some skills from his previous career in acting to help him find a breakthrough with Donald Trump, our security and defence analyst Michael Clarke has said.
The US president came away from what he described as a “beautiful meeting” at the Vatican praising Ukraine’s president for being “calmer”.
And that could be down to Zelenskyy’s previous career as an actor, Michael Clarke has said, because he “knows how to connect with people”.
“There’s Donald Trump who we know is pretty manipulatable… I think Zelenskyy would have been able to say look, I’m trying to do the best for my people.”
Watch Michael Clarke’s full analysis below
Clarke explained that Trump came away “somewhat affected” by the discussion because he’s a “man-to-man person”.
“He believes power is personal, it’s between people,” Clarke added.
“Maybe Zelenskyy the actor was able to break through a bit of that and say, ‘we’ve got to start from here, we need the Russians to stop, and then we can talk’.”