But Peter Singer, a professor at the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University, said Fedorov had been “incredibly effective” in calling on companies to rethink their ties with Russia.
“No celebrity, let alone a nation, has ever been more effective than Ukraine in promulgating corporate brands to name them and disgracing them to act morally,” said Mr. Singer. “If there is such a thing as ‘cancel culture’, the Ukrainians can claim they honed it in war.”
In the 45-minute interview on Zoom, Mr. Fedorov, dressed in a loose-fitting gray fleece with black zippers, sat in front of a wood-paneled wall. He’s been getting about three to four hours of sleep a night, he said, often interrupted every 30 minutes or so by alerts on the iPhone he keeps by his bed. He said he was concerned about his father, who has been in intensive care for the past week after a rocket hit the house next door.
“I’ve taken the horror over my shoulders,” he said. “The war has also personally come knocking on my door.”
Mr. Fedorov grew up in the small town of Vasylivka in southern Ukraine near the Dnieper River. Before entering politics, he started a digital marketing company called SMMSTUDIO that designed online advertising campaigns.
The job led him to a job with Mr Zelensky in 2018, then an actor who unexpectedly ran for the presidency of Ukraine. Mr. Fedorov became the digital director of the campaign and used social media to portray Mr. Zelensky as a youthful symbol of change.
After Mr. Zelensky was elected in 2019, he appointed Mr. Fedorov, then 28, as Minister of Digital Transformation, making him responsible for digitizing Ukrainian social services. Through a government app, people could pay speeding fines or manage their taxes. Last year, Mr. Fedorov visited Silicon Valley to meet with leaders, including Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
