'I want to remain human': Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the price of war and the future of Ukraine

War has a way of robbing you of your humanity, leaving you bitter and hollow.

As the leader of a country whose people face a barrage of death and misery every day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is acutely aware of his own struggle to maintain his humanity.

"I don't allow myself to get used to it," he said.

"I live with the idea that I'm not ready to get used to suffering, to get used to war."

In his interview this week with Canadian journalists (my CBC News colleagues Briar Stewart and Radio-Canada's Marie-Eve Bédard, and CTV's Paul Workman), the former comedian and actor turned world leader delivered a tour-de-force performance.

Eloquent, forceful and gusty, but also gracious and at times relaxed, Zelenskyy called out Iran for selling "kamikaze" drones to Russia — the kind being used to wreck Ukraine's electricity grid. He called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Europe to stop handling Moscow with kid gloves over the occupation of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.

He also offered some remarkable moments of reflection — glimpses of the man behind the office and the depth of the anger and resentment his people might carry into an eventual peace with Russia.

During an interview interrupted by reports of missile and drone strikes, and the thud of anti-aircraft rockets launching, Zelenskyy said he finds the energy to keep going after more than seven months of war in his determination to not to lose himself — to not become consumed by the war.

"I want to remain human, just an ordinary human, regardless of the fact that I'm a president," he said, adding that he tries, (whenever his security detail allows it) to get outside and even drive, to enjoy some vestiges of a normal life.

In an interview with an American magazine before the war, he described the presidential palace as a gilded cage. Since the onset of major hostilities, it has become a fortress ringed by sandbags, its neatly manicured lawns split by trenches.

Zelenskyy said that when he does find space to relax, he tries to learn what's going on in the wider world. That, he said, inevitably leads to thoughts about what life might be like after the war.

He said he's not sure what sort of relationship his people and country will have with Russia after the war.

"They took too many people, too many lives," Zelenskyy said. "The society will not forgive them."

Much will be settled on the battlefield and much will depend, he said, on whether Ukraine's territory is restored.