Volodymyr Zelensky (25 January 1978-) was President of Ukraine from 20 May 2019, succeeding Petro Poroshenko.
Biography[]
Volodymyr Zelensky was born in Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union in 1978 to a Jewish family, and his father worked in Mongolia for four years. Zelensky studied at the Kyiv National Economic University, and he became a comedian during the late 1990s, winning the KVN's Major League competition in 1997. He founded Kvartal 95, a popular comedy company in Ukraine, and it soon developed into a major film studio. In 2015, he portrayed the President of Ukraine in the television series Servant of the People, and he decided to run for the real office in 2018 at the head of the "Servant of the People" political party.
He donated ₴1 million to the Ukrainian army during the Donbass War, but he spoke out against the banning of Russian artists from Ukraine, even as Russia called for a boycott of Zelensky's works due to his political activism. Zelensky swore to bring professional, decent people to power and to restore trust in politicians, and he supported European Union and NATO membership referendums in the country, anti-corruption bills, election reform, NATO-standard salaries for the military, a tax amnesty and a 5% flat tax for big business, the attraction of investment in Ukraine, and negotiations with Russia to end the Donbass War.
He won the election with 73% of the popular vote, and he lifted legal immunity for members of parliament, oversaw the country's response to COVID-19 and the subsequent economic recession, and supported anti-corruption efforts. However, his popular support soon eroded after it was revealed that he intended to seek peace in eastern Ukraine without addressing the public demands of the Ukrainian majority. By July 2021, the government showed signs of drifting towards authoritarianism as Zelensky sought to shut down private medias and purge rival businessmen through "de-oligarchization". That same year, his administration faced an escalation of tensions with Russia as Russia demanded that Ukraine make a legally binding promise not to join NATO; Zelensky refused to be cowed by the Russians, even as they built up forces on the Ukrainian border. When Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, Zelensky refused to abandon Kyiv, even when offered evacuation by the United States, and he declared martial law across the country, ordered a general mobilization of the armed forces, and banned several pro-Russian parties. Zelensky's bold leadership in the face of superior odds resulted in Zelensky becoming a greatly admired figure across the Western world, and he was named Time Person of the Year in 2022. Amid the conflict, Zelensky oversaw negotiations with the West about Ukrainian membership in the European Union while lobbying for financial and materiel support from NATO. While he was lionized by Western liberals and conservatives, the European and American far-left and far-right attacked him, with isolationists attacking foreign aid to Ukraine and Republican politician Vivek Ramaswamy even calling Zelensky a "fraud" for banning opposition parties and securing billions of dollars' worth of US military supplies.