The San Remo Festival will be remembered as the “Festival of the two Presidents”: the President of the Italian Republic Mattarella at the opening and the Ukrainian President Zelensky at the closing. The latter does not appear live, following the protests that were raised in Italy. However, the substance remains: Zelensky sent a speech to the San Remo Festival which – the anchorman Amadeus in charge of this reading announced – “it is even translated by the Ukrainian Embassy in order to be very faithful to President Zelensky’s writing”.

Zelensky’s performance at the Festival is confronted with the reality happening in Ukraine, reconstructed through dramatic visual documentation in this episode of Grandangolo.

What Zelensky’s real role is, has been revealed by a journalistic investigation published by The Guardian. In the 2019 presidential election, actor Zelenski, who became famous for his TV sitcom on the corruption of Ukrainian political leaders, pledged to end the war in Donbas and clean up the oligarch-dominated government system. He accused wealthy Petro Poroshenko, incumbent president, of hiding his assets in tax havens abroad.

Regarding his first commitment, once in the presidency, Zelensky’s role was not to end the war in Donbas, unleashed in 2014 against the Russian populations of this region, but to fuel the NATO-led de facto war to target Russia.

Regarding the second commitment to eliminate corruption, in particular the export of capital to tax havens, the investigation elements published by The Guardian are clear. Zelensky is the co-owner of three companies headquartered and capitalized in Belize and the British Virgin Islands (Central America) and Cyprus. Upon assuming the post of chairman, Zelensky “transferred” his company shares to two of his partners. And, once in office, he appointed his first partner as his special assistant and the second one as head of the Ukrainian secret service.