Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals explain why the war hangs in the balance

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Two books stand out in the stacks resting on the desk of Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president. One is a collection of essays on Ukrainian history by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, a 19th-century thinker who helped forge the country’s national identity. The second is “Hitler and Stalin: the Tyrants and the Second World War”, by Laurence Rees, an English historian. The books hint not only at the president’s outlook, but also his changed circumstances.

When The Economist last spoke to Mr Zelensky, in March, the conversation took place in a situation room. He was living in a secret bunker full of instant noodles and a sense of existential peril. Now he is back in his old wood-panelled office in central Kyiv. An Oscar statuette, lent for good luck by Sean Penn, a Hollywood actor, stands on a shelf. Though sandbags and tank traps remain, gone is the adrenalin of those early weeks. Mr Zelensky’s routine typifies the change. At 6am each morning he dons his reading glasses and flicks through 20 or so pages of each book.