While President Vladimir Putin justifies his invasion of Ukraine by saying that Russia will have to rid its neighbor of neo-Nazis, Zhan Beleniuk portrays his native country as one that welcomes all races.
“My purpose is to show that Ukraine is a tolerant country,” Beleniuk, Ukraine’s first black parliamentarian, told Al Jazeera.
“I think I’m the example of how Ukrainians understand other people of other skin colors,” said the 31-year-old, who identifies as Afro-Ukrainian.
Beleniuk, a member of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s liberal Servant of the People party, was born in Kyiv in 1991 to a Ukrainian mother Svitlana Beleniuk and Vincent Ndagijimana, a Rwandan.
Ndagijimana, a pilot who studied in Kyiv where he met Beleniuk’s mother, died in 1994 in the genocide against the other Tutsis in Rwanda.
At the age of nine, wrestling was Beleniuk’s main pastime.
At age 15, he began education at the Koncha Zaspa Olympic Center in Kyiv, aiming to become Ukraine’s Greco-Roman wrestling champion.
And starting in 2006, he trained almost on the floor.
But after February 24 of this year, he visited the media for other reasons.
Working as a politician rather than a sportsman, the first two months of the war helped feed, help and relocate thousands of others displaced by Russia’s invasion of the site.
He organized the dispatch of many other people who sought to succeed in western Ukraine, away from the heavy Russian bombardment.
“Before this escalation on February 24, I didn’t think Russia would invade Ukraine. Now we are 8 months into this war, and acting logically has not been the strong point of the Russian Federation. But we wait,” he said.
“Not only Kyiv is being attacked with missiles, but also Zaporizhia, Dnipro and Kharkiv. The majority of the population of these villages speaks Russian. Russia says, “We have to save the other Russians,” and they attack the territory. where other people who speak Russian with others live. It doesn’t make sense.
“We expect rational thinking and logic to prevail. “
In 2010, Beleniuk began winning medals at the European and World Wrestling Championships.
As the profile of the young athlete grew, he made the impression on television, that’s how he met Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then actor and television manufacturer who would be president of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy warmed up with the attractions of Beleniuk. La couple got along well, and in 2019 Zelenskyy approached Beleniuk to run as a member of his new liberal People’s Servant party.
“I told him about my main goal in wrestling,” Beleniuk said. “I was second at the Olympic Games in Rio [de Janeiro] and I needed to try to outdo myself in the next games in Tokyo. And this conversation was in 2019 and next year, we thought that Olympic Games will start, but the games were postponed because of COVID and pushed back to 2021.”
Beleniuk joined Zelenskyy’s team and was elected deputy of the Verkhovna Rada in July 2019. He also controlled the fight.
“I am a politician and an athlete. It was very difficult, there were many challenges. I didn’t have time for anything, just for politics and for the gym with my coach, who was preparing me for the Olympics.
The hard paintings paid off and Beleniuk ended up winning Ukraine’s gold medal in Tokyo in 2021.
But now that Russia is waging war in its home country, the stakes are much higher, and there is no opportunity yet.
Being an athlete and an athlete couldn’t be more different, however, some of the principles Beleniuk learned as an athlete proved useful in politics.
“Sport teaches me to stay calm because when you have a big fight, you have to focus on all the activities in the right way. That’s why I don’t panic and seek to help those in need.
Wrestling has also taught him to stay and never give up, even when the going gets tough.
This was especially complicated when Russian forces reached Kiev. Beleniuk kept 3 guns under his table to protect himself.
The weapons are now stored in a safe, but he still attends shooting lessons in case the Russians return to the Ukrainian capital.
While Russian bombs were falling, Belenyuk visited African countries with the aim of strengthening Ukraine on the continent.
“We want to initiate closer communication with other countries in Africa,” he said.
He met in Rwanda, his father’s homeland, in mid-October and with lawmakers in South Africa.
In the interview, he draws comparisons between Ukraine’s struggle against Russia and South Africa’s struggle to break with the racist apartheid rule in 1994 and calls on countries that approved a UN solution in October condemning Russia to replace their minds.
Several African countries, South Africa, abstained.
While many African countries have called for peace, they have refrained from condemning Russia.
Some are strong with Moscow because Russia has been present on the continent “for a long time,” since the days of the Soviet Union, Belenuik said.
Although Ukraine produces 12% of Africa’s wheat imports, as well as commodities such as fertilizers and sunflower oil, the Eastern European country gained independence from the Soviet Union only in 1991, so it would possibly seem that it has not been invested in Africa for a long time,” Belenuik said.
He said Russian officials have altered history in a way that gives the impression that only modern Russia helped African countries in Soviet times, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union at the time.
His father would never have known his mother about the Soviet Union’s immigration policy toward Rwandans, he said.
“It’s like the way [Russia] talked about World War II — Russian officials said only Russia won that war, but they forgot about a coalition that helped do that and attempted that victory on their own,” the lawmaker said.