- Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch praised Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a wartime leader.
- The compliment comes after Zelenskyy disparaged her in a 2019 call with then-President Donald Trump.
- Yovanovitch told Insider Zelenskyy was "pandering" to Trump in that call.
Former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "wartime leader like we haven't seen since Winston Churchill," offering high praise for a man who once called her a "bad ambassador" in a call with former President Donald Trump.
During a wide-ranging interview with Insider on Thursday, Yovanovitch praised Zelenskyy's communication skills and his courage for staying in Kyiv during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and for communicating from the streets with the Ukrainian people.
"He is the wartime leader that Ukraine needs," she said.
Yovanovitch, who Trump fired in April 2019, writes in her new memoir "Lessons From The Edge" about Zelenskyy and Trump slamming her in their July 2019 phone call that helped trigger Trump's first impeachment inquiry.
She was surprised that then-President Trump praised Ukraine's "corrupt prosecutor" while trashing an American ambassador to a foreign president — and that Zelenskyy piled on, agreeing with Trump's assessment of her as a "bad ambassador." She was also alarmed that Zelenskyy asked Trump for additional information about her for an investigation, realizing she was at risk of prosecution in Ukraine.
But during the interview with Insider, Yovanovitch seemed to have put that behind her.
"I think what you saw in that phone call was pandering to Trump and his ego and telling him what he wanted to hear," she said. "And I would say that we've seen that from other world leaders, and we've certainly seen it from people here in the United States, as well. That may not have been his shining moment. But, you know, he's not unique in how he managed that relationship."
Shortly before the 2019 call, Trump ordered a freeze on US military aid to Ukraine that would help fend off Russia's aggression. During the phone call, Trump asked Zelenskyy to "do us a favor, though," and investigate unfounded allegations of corruption against the Bidens, as well as the conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election.
Yovanovitch was recalled from Ukraine shortly after Zelenskyy was elected president but she met him several times before and during his candidacy and watched his television show, "Servant of the People", about a Ukrainian high school teacher who becomes president.
She expected to meet a funny guy because he was a comedian, but said he took great pains to talk about his business side and his media conglomerate, which he built with his friends from his hometown. He wanted US officials to understand that he had other skills in business, she said.
She said they had "a perfectly normal relationship," and there was nothing in their meetings that would have indicated a concern he had about her.
"He has gone from being a comedian, a businessman, to becoming president with all the responsibilities that that entails to becoming a wartime leader like we haven't seen since Winston Churchill," she said. "He is reflecting the spirit of the Ukrainian people, but he is also binding them together and uniting them and inspiring them — and inspiring the world."