A man branded as a mere TV comic with no political nous has just been elected to the top job in Kiev. But all is not what it seems with the arrival of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy

It was a glorious spring day when Ukrainians went to vote for their next president. The trees suddenly had their new leaves, the birds sang, and cafés had put tables outside for the first time since the long winter. There was a sense, if not actually of hope, of reawakening. And the provisional result came within minutes of the polls closing: Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who plays a fictional president in a popular television series, had come from nowhere to beat the sitting president by a landslide.

Since then, there has been a tendency, especially outside Ukraine and in the camp of the defeated president, to treat Zelenskiy’s victory in the same way as his campaign: as a bit of a laugh and as a reflection of our generally absurd times. Zelenskiy himself is branded a TV “comic” with zero relevant experience who risks being seriously out of his depth in the big wide world of national and international politics. So beware.

Well, maybe. But take a step back: Ukraine has just held a democratic vote in which a complete outsider has been elected to the presidency. The loser, Petro Poroshenko, has accepted defeat and has said he will remain in politics.