Jokes and Offbeat Auctions for the Troops: Standup Comedy Sweeps Ukraine

Onstage in a Kyiv theater, Anton Tymoshenko tells a joke about Ukrainians who are never satisfied with the weapons their country gets from the West — if they got nuclear weapons, he says, they would probably grumble about the quality of the uranium. He mocks the Odesa mayor (for being allegedly pro-Russian) and the Kyiv one (for being allegedly pro-himself).

Then Mr. Tymoshenko turns his attention to President Volodymyr Zelensky, once a comedian, and his speeches aimed at rallying the Ukrainian people that he has broadcast daily since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“Who still watches Zelensky’s videos? Please applaud,” Mr. Tymoshenko asks his audience. A few clap, with little enthusiasm. “Every day, there’s a new one. And you don’t watch them. Neither do I.” He adds, “The first season was great, but now …” He pauses for comic effect. “Maybe he should just rerun old episodes.”

Being a comedian during a war might seem a bit like being a clown at a funeral. But the crowd laughs.

In the third year of the full-scale war with Russia, stand-up comedy, relatively new to Ukraine, is having a moment. Mr. Tymoshenko, 30, is one of a new crop of stand-up comics trying to make people laugh even as Russian missiles slam into Ukrainian cities.

The comedians have performed in the war-ravaged city of Kharkiv; for troops near the front lines in the east; and in the capital, Kyiv, in venues including a bomb shelter and an outdoor stage of a high-rise shopping mall.