Umid Isabaev comes from Ukraine. Like the vast majority of his compatriots, the life of this 41-year-old man changed overnight after the invasion of his country by Russian forces at the end of February. In front first “shelter in a bunker while missiles rained down near kyiv”Umid Isabaev finally chose to flee his country to go to Poland, like millions of other Ukrainians since the beginning of the war.
But if his case, sadly similar to that of so many other Ukrainians, attracts attention, it is because Umid Isabaev is the lookalike of the Ukrainian president turned national hero, Volodymyr Zelensky, reports the Washington Post.
It all started in 2019, after a photo of him taken in the metro in Moscow – the city in which he lived for more than ten years before moving to Ukraine – was posted on the internet. Faced with his striking resemblance to Zelensky, Umid was quickly contacted to make the condition his profession. For example, he played a role in the series servant of the peoplewho also made Zelensky famous before he became president.
So when war breaks out in Ukraine, “Russians and Ukrainians offered him help, but [Umid] didn’t know who to trust. Especially since “Russian soldiers […] wanted to take him to Moscow to spread negative propaganda in Ukraine”. Faced with this pressure, it seems complicated to him to set up a plan to flee his country. It was without counting on an improbable help: that of the lookalikes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.
“We are a tribe”
Howard X and Slawomir – who declined to reveal more information about their identities for fear of reprisals from North Korean and Russian security forces – are the lookalikes of Kim Jong-un and Putin respectively. The two men first met in 2017, when they were called “to act together in an advertisement for the electronics company Wilson”. If, at the time, they had never met Umid Isabaev before, they had heard about him after his appearance in a documentary about the impersonators of men and women politicians.
When war breaks out in Ukraine in late February, Howard can’t help but think of Umid and the possible danger he finds himself in. He therefore decides to send her a message and offers to finance her exile to Poland. It is from this same country that Slawomir – Putin’s look-alike – decides to intervene and “to remain in constant communication with the Zelensky look-alike throughout his journey to Poland.”
Thanks to the kindness of these two men, Umid Isabaev arrived in Poland on March 12 after a week’s journey. On arrival, “Howard sent a car to pick him up and paid for his hotels.” Slawomir and Umid have since been able to meet and have also been able to discuss the war over a beer in a Polish bar.
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“Life as a professional politician look-alike can be fun, explains Howard. But it is also a risky business. It therefore seemed normal to lend a hand to Umid Isabaev. «[Nous sommes] a tribe”concludes the look-alike of the North Korean dictator.
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