The Personal Factor in Ukraine’s Strategic Communication in Times of War

In the communication model, where the State is one of the subjects of communication, the problem of personal representation of a communication message arises, which can have a decisive impact on the final effect of communication interaction. A charismatic leader or a vivid image, which is an important component of the state brand, is perhaps the key element in building public trust, solidarity and the necessary emotional background. In this chapter, we will try to deconstruct one of the factors that shaped the “face” of Ukraine’s resistance in the Russian–Ukrainian war—the personal factor of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. We examine how the strategic communication of the state during the years of full-scale war (from February 2022 to February 2025) actually focused on the personality of President Zelenskyy who shaped the narratives of unity and resistance for the domestic audience and, at the same time, tried to mobilise the democratic world to support the Ukrainian struggle. Also, based on theories of leadership and populism, we show the influence of three main factors on the personal communication of the Ukrainian president: Zelenskyy’s personal image, the leadership model of communication he uses, and populist rhetoric as one of the important components of personalist power and which can be correlated with the model of “valence populism”.