Did Lex Fridman interview Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine? Here's everything we know so far

Podcasts have made many headlines in recent years as a result of interviewing high-profile politicians – such as Joe Rogan’s interview with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’ appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast.

And now, there’s the possibility Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky may be a guest on the Lex Fridman Podcast to discuss the ongoing war in his country, sparked by Russia's invasion which began in February 2022.

Who is Lex Fridman?

A research scientist within MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision systems, Fridman – per his website – studies “human-robot interaction and machine learning”.

He’s interviewed more than 450 people as part of the Lex Fridman Podcast, with high-profile interviewees including politicians Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Benjamin Netanyahu; commentators Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson; billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and more.

The offer

Fridman took to Twitter/X on 29 November to say he would “love” to carry out a “three-hour podcast” interview with the Ukrainian president, adding he would travel to the country’s capital, Kyiv, to conduct the conversation.

What did Zelensky say in response to Fridman’s request?

The next day, Zelensky replied to the tweet and wrote: “Agreed. See you in Ukraine.”

He has not sent any other tweets to Fridman since.

Why does Fridman want to conduct the interview in Russian?

However, close to a month after the aforementioned request, Fridman expressed his desire for the whole interview to be conducted in Russian – a language in which both the podcaster and the president are fluent.

Explaining his reasoning in a Twitter/X post on 24 December, Fridman wrote: “For people who may not know, the Ukrainian language has increasingly become a symbol of the Ukrainian people's fight for freedom and independence.

“Unfortunately, it is a language I do not speak yet, but I am learning it. I do know how to speak fluent Russian, as does President Zelenskyy, and as does a large fraction of Ukrainian people.

“Speaking in a language we're both fluent in will result in the most most [sic] deep, dynamic, and powerful conversation. We will of course, translate and dub it into Ukrainian and English.”

Zelensky has not publicly responded to Fridman’s proposal.

When did Lex Fridman arrive in Ukraine?

Fridman confirmed he was in Ukraine on 26 December, when he shared a picture of him in the Babi Yar ravine in Kyiv the day before, a site which he said “many in my family were slaughtered by Nazi forces in 1941” as part of the mass shooting.

He wrote that his two goals for the visit were to “interview President Zelenskyy” and “for me to personally understand and feel the reality of this war”.

Five days later, on 31 December, he updated his social media profiles to confirm he was “still alive” and “focused on pushing for peace”, but gave no further information about his reported interview with Zelensky.

When will the podcast episode be released?

Not long after we published the original version of this article, Fridman shared a picture of him and Zelensky to Twitter/X, saying the pair had a "great conversation" and that the episode "should be out Monday" 6 January, lasting more than three hours.

Fridman actually ended up posting the interview on Sunday, just after 7pm GMT.

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