Shortly before the massive invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, President Zelensky tried to reach Vladimir Putin on the telephone. Putin refused to take his call.

Then Zelensky made an emotional appeal to the people of Russia, addressing them in Russian, yet fully aware that the state-controlled media would block his words on Russian media.

Putin said he had to invade to “denazify” Ukraine, which threatened Russia, but this was an absurd lie. Zelensky is Jewish and certainly not a Nazi. He reminded listeners that eight million Ukrainians died in the war against Nazi-ism.

The Washington Post wrote about his appeal:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with the Russian people late Wednesday to stop their leadership from sending troops across the border and into his country, recording an emotional video appeal that underscored the close ties between the two nations and warned of the despair that would come from a needless war.

Zelensky, speaking in Russian, said Moscow had approved the movement of nearly 200,000 troops into Ukrainian territory, along with thousands of armored vehicles lined up at the border. He said an incursion risked becoming “the start of a big war on the European continent.”

“You are being told this is a plan to free the people of Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “But the Ukrainian people are free.”

His words appealing for peace stood in sharp contrast to a speech delivered Monday by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who delved into Russian history to undermine the notion of Ukraine as an independent nation. He also launched a barrage of accusations against the government in Kyiv that were widely seen as a prelude to an invasion.

By turns wrenching and defiant, Zelensky sought to break through the wall of state-controlled Russian newscasts that have depicted Ukraine as a nation run by Nazis threatening Moscow, though he conceded that his words probably wouldn’t be shown on Russian television.

“The Ukraine on your news and Ukraine in real life are two completely different countries — and the main difference is ours is real,” Zelensky said. “You are told that we are Nazis. How could a people that lost more than 8 million people in the fight against Nazism support Nazism?

“How could I be a Nazi?” Zelensky, who is Jewish, asked, noting that his grandfather spent the entire war as a Soviet soldier but died in an independent Ukraine.

Zelensky said Russians are being told that he is preparing an offensive to retake separatist territory in the Donbas region and “bomb it without questions.” But, he asked, who he would be attacking?

“Luhansk? The house where my best friend’s mother lives? The place where the father of my best friend is buried?” Zelensky said.

“This is our land. This is our history. What are you fighting for and with whom?” he said. “Many of you have been to Ukraine. Many of you have relatives in Ukraine. Some have studied in Ukrainian universities. Some have made friends with Ukrainians. You know our character. You know our people. You know our principles.”

“The people of Ukraine want peace,” he said. “The government of Ukraine wants peace.”

For weeks, Zelensky has complained that the U.S. government has been overly alarmist in warning about the possibility of a large-scale Russian war against Ukraine, damaging the country’s economy in the process.

But on Wednesday, his tone had transformed into that of a leader worried for a people who stand alone against the might of the Russian military despite planeloads of Western weapons and aid.

He warned Russians that if their military invades Ukraine, his nation would defend itself.

“We know for sure we do not need a war — not a cold one, not a hot one, not a hybrid one,” he said. “But if these forces attack us, if you attempt to take away our country, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. Not attack — defend. And in attacking, you are going to see our faces. Not our backs, our faces.”

Zelensky spent much of the address warning about the costs of war, which Ukrainian territory has seen more than most.

“War is a grave tragedy, and that tragedy has a great cost in all senses of the word,” Zelensky said. “People lose money, reputations, quality of life, freedom … but most of all people lose their loved ones … They lose themselves.”