How 60 Minutes secured interview with Volodymyr Zelenskyy

“Oout of the blue, a couple of weeks ago, Kirsty Thompson, our EP called me very early one morning and said,’This is highly confidential but we’ve got Zelenskyy,'” Tom Steinfort recalls.

“I said, ‘Bullshit!'”

Within 24 hours the 60 Minutes reporter was on a plane headed to Warsaw, Poland, for the interview of a lifetime: an interview with Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“One of our producers, Sheree Gibson, is just an absolute dog with a bone”

“We’d been talking about trying to get this interview for months. He’s the international man of the moment. Everyone in the world wants to speak to him. One of our producers, Sheree Gibson, is just an absolute dog with a bone was chasing it from the outset, calling everyday. ”

Nine had been presing Zelenskyy’s own media man Sergii Nykyforov to land the interview as well as liaising via Canberra.

“Sheree wasn’t just calling him, she was working the ambassador in Canberra, calling everyone she could get her hands on, and eventually, she just wore them down.

“At first they were like, ‘Yeah, we get it. You work for a good TV show. We’ve also got America to factor in, the UK and every other country in the world.'”

With a small Nine crew Steinfort’s team took medical kits, tourniquets, bandages, in readiness for a worst case scenario. From Warsaw they travelled to the Polish border, then into Ukraine and headed to Kiev. In the west of the country, Steinfort says there were no signs of fighting.

“I guess the one upside is they’re not going to bomb this place again.”

“You wouldn’t even know there’s a war. It’s all pretty normal. Then you start hitting more and more roadblocks and then parts of the highway that have got giant craters and rockets. It’s getting very real, very quick. The closer you get to Kiev the bombing that’s hit gets worse and worse. In Kiev, weirdly some of the places that have got that horrible damage, in the back of your mind you’re thinking ‘I guess the one upside is they’re not going to bomb this place again. It’s almost the safest place you can be.’ But in central Kiev several times the air raid siren went off.

“In a bushfire you know where the firefront is, in a flood you know where the water’s coming from…. if you hear an air raid siren, you don’t know where the rockets coming from.

“Luckily, we had security people with us so I just did what the security expert tells me to do.

“We could hear explosions in the distance but not being an expert I was pretty comfortable, thinking to myself ‘I don’t know how far that far away that is. But it doesn’t sound close enough just yet for us to really panic.'”

The team had 3 days on the ground in Kiev, shooting footage and one day interviewing Zelenskyy. In his 60 Minutes report Steinfort detailed the high security before meeting the President, including checking all their equipment. The secret location had all the windows covered to avoid revealing information to the enemy.

It was here Steinfort met the former comedian-turned-wartime President for a surprisingly frank exchange.

“We do pleasantries, a little walk-and-talk and sit down for the main master interview. Before the cameras are rolling, while guys set up tripods, out of nowhere, he just started telling me how much he loves Australia -sometimes a celebrity will say that, as a way of buttering up the interviewer.

“He started telling me ‘I love Australians, because they really care.'”

“He so rarely ever speaks in English in interviews and to journalists. But he really wanted to get his message across. He started telling me ‘I love Australians, because they really care.’ I thought he was talking about the military support and the sanctions. But he said he went there as a tourist 20 years ago on a holiday, and loved the people. He specifically remembered staying in Sydney and he went for a run and got lost. But this random Ukrainian bloke looking confused was amazed how many everyday Australians went up to him said ‘Mate, are you okay, do you need a hand?’

“Since then he’s always thought Australians were such caring, helpful people. So it all kind of makes sense to him now, seeing how the country’s responded.

“His fondness for Australians really helped him open up in the interview.”

Yet the trust in the Australian crew didn’t end for the duration of the interview. With Zelenskyy’s location remaining secret, the Ukrainians are counting on the information remaining undisclosed.

“They let us come in there and show us exactly where Putin’s #1 target is hiding”

“I find it amazing that the Russians haven’t figured out where he is and haven’t bombed it. If ever you wanted to be somewhere that’s a target. it’s wherever Zelenskyy is at any given time. So it was it was pretty trusting. I hadn’t even thought about it. But when you put it like that it’s extraordinarily trusting of them. They let us come in there and show us exactly where Putin’s #1 target is hiding,” he admits.

Steinfort remains in awe of Zelenskyy’s candour and bravery as a man thrown into a war with a superpower. But his experience in media is being cleverly adapted as a weapon too.

“He’s just a man who speaks from the heart”

“He walks out in army fatigues,” Steinfort recalls. “You want to sometimes just bash your head against the wall when you listen to politicians in Australia, particularly during an election campaign. It’s all talking points…. ‘here’s what we’ve been told to say from focus groups.’ But I turn up in my shirt and tie, all just cookie cutter -he comes out in green army fatigues, the polar opposite of the politician. He’s just a man who speaks from the heart,” he continues.

“As soon as they fall out of the public interest and the headlines, they’re kind of in a weird way, done. Because Russia would then just steamroll them. So they need to keep themselves front and centre in the minds of everyone in the west so they can get keep getting military support, financial support, whatever it may be, It’s a genuine danger for them that if they’re if they’re not being talked about anymore, they’re dust.”

The interview will also remain a badge of honour on Steinfort’s own journalism resume.

“I don’t think I’ve ever gotten as many messages after a story as I did after this one”

“I don’t think I’ve ever gotten as many messages after a story as I did after this one. Friends, family and heaps of people from across the media spectrum. The stereotype in TV sometimes is people are bitchy and out to get each other… but across the board, it’s a very supportive family at Nine and I’ve had messages from people across all sorts of shows at Nine – not just news and current affairs. Programming, marketing, all different departments and other networks too.

“Some stories you don’t remember five minutes later, some you might remember five weeks later. This one I feel like in five decades I’ll still remember the time we went into Kiev to interview the President in the midst of a war.

60 Minutes is now screening at 9Now.

Photos: Tom Steinfort