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Published 02:56 IST, December 12th 2019

Russian TV to air comedy starring Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy

Russian TV is all set to start airing a popular comedy series which stars the actor turned the president of Ukraine as an effort to ease relations with Ukraine

Reported by: Riya Baibhawi
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Russian TV is all set to start airing a popular comedy series which stars the actor turned President of Ukraine as an effort to de-escalate conflict between the two countries. The series called Servant of The People is scheduled to screen on entertainment channel TNT from tomorrow. The show was produced by Gazprom Media and it offered a satirical look on modern politics and ties between people and authorities in Ukraine.

Putin will not watch it

The series first premiered in Ukraine in 2015 and has become one of the most popular series since its release. On the eve of its premiere, the Russian channel said that Servant of the People was a utopia that had nothing to do with Zelenskiy's Ukraine. A Spokesperson from Kremlin said that Putin was unlikely to watch the show owing to lack of time.

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Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russia's Vladimir Putin are all set to meet face to face along with the French and German leaders for the first time in three years. This meeting has been made possible after the easing of tensions. But even so, the prospects of peace remain somewhat bleak. The five-year-old conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces has also claimed the lives of 13,000 people in east Ukraine. The conflict between Ukraine and Russia began with the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula back in 2014. According to Vladimir Frolov who is a former Russian Diplomat, there is very little chance that anything concrete will come out of these talks because the positions of both the countries are irreconcilable. This meeting is more of a test to see where both the countries stand vis-a-vis the ongoing conflict. According to Gazprom Media, 38.5 million Russians watch TNT every week. The show has previously been available to Russians on a local video streaming service.

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(With inputs from agencies)

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02:09 IST, December 12th 2019