Volodimir Zelenski

Volodimir Zelenski biography

Volodímir Oleksándrovich Zelenski (born January 25, 1978) is a Ukrainian actor, comedian, and politician. President of Ukraine. Zelenski is the son of Jewish parents and studied law, but his career eventually turned toward the arts. In university, he began acting in theater, and after graduating in 2003, he became one of the founders of Studio Kvartal 95, a production company derived from the theater group of which he was a member. From 2012 to 2015, Zelenski appeared in several feature films, and his fame exploded with the release of Servant of the People (2015), in which he played a teacher turned president. The movie became reality in 2019 when Zelenski succeeded Petró Poroshenko as President of Ukraine.

Early years.

Volodímir Zelensky was born in 1978 in Kryvyy Rih, a industrial city in southern Ukraine. As a child, his family moved to Erdenet, Mongolia for four years before returning to Kryvyy Rih. Zelensky attended school in this city and spoke Russian as a native language, but also became fluent in Ukrainian and English. In 1995, he began studying law at the National Economic University of Kiev at the local Kryvyy Rih Economic Institute campus. He graduated in 2000.

Career as an actor and comedian.

Although he was licensed to practice law, Zelenski chose a different path for his career. While still a student, he had become active in theater, which would become his primary focus. In 1997, his acting group, Kvartal 95, gained recognition by appearing in the televised finals of KVN, a popular improvisational comedy competition broadcast throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States. From then on, Zelensky and Kvartal 95 became regulars on KVN, appearing on the show until 2003. That same year, Zelensky co-founded Studio Kvartal 95, a production company that would become one of the most prolific and successful entertainment studios in Ukraine.
Zelensky served as the studio’s artistic director from its inception until 2011, when he was appointed general producer of the Inter TV channel. Zelensky left Inter TV in 2012, but continued acting. From 2012 to 2015, he appeared in several feature films,

including the historical farce Rzhevskiy vs. Napoleon (2012), as well as the comedies 8 First Dates (2012), Love in Vegas (2014), and 8 New Dates (2015)

Servant of the People (2015) and the path to the presidency.

In 2013, Zelensky returned to Kvartal 95 as artistic director, but his career in entertainment soon intersected with the seismic events that shook Ukrainian politics. In February 2014, then-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown after months of protests, after which he fled to Russia. Three months later Petro Poroshenko was elected as President of Ukraine. With a tumultuous political situation (following Russia’s annexation of Crimea) and endemic corruption, Poroshenko struggled to pass modest reforms. It was in this context that Servant of the People premiered in October 2015. Zelensky starred in the film as Vasiliy Goloborodko

, a history teacher who becomes an Internet phenomenon after being recorded by a student giving a passionate and profanity-laden speech against official corruption. The video paved the way for Goloborodko to become President of Ukraine, and the film provided a kind of roadmap for Zelensky’s political aspirations. Anticipating this, in 2018 Kvartal 95 officially registered Servant of the People as a political party in Ukraine.

Ukrainian presidential election.

With the Ukrainian economy stalled, a war on the horizon, and Poroshenko’s approval rating hovering around single digits, Zelensky emerged as one of the leading candidates for the Ukrainian presidency in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. However, his candidacy was threatened by his association with 1+1 Media owner Ihor Kolomoisky. His distancing from the businessman paid off. On March 31, 2019, Zelensky received over 30% of the vote in the first round, compared to Poroshenko’s 16%. Later, in April, he faced off against Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev. The Russian President failed to land any significant blows against Zelensky.
Ukrainian presidency
On April 21, 2019, Zelensky was elected President of Ukraine with 73% of the vote.

Upon being elected, Zelensky quickly faced his first foreign policy challenge when Putin announced his decision to offer Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens in the separatist-controlled areas. The Russia-backed war on the border was entering its fifth year, with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians displaced. Zelensky mocked the offer and responded with a Facebook post extending Ukrainian citizenship to Russians and others “suffering from authoritarian or corrupt regimes.”
As Zelensky worked to build his new administration, ties with his former business partner came back under scrutiny. Kolomoisky had provided a valuable platform for Zelensky during the presidential campaign, though Zelensky promised not to grant him any special favors.
In September 2019, Zelensky found another problem in his administration when an informant in the US intelligence community filed a formal complaint about the actions of then-US President Donald Trump, regarding the alleged withholding of a significant package of military aid to Ukraine. In return for not investigating the alleged wrongdoing involving now-President Joe Biden and his son with Ukrainian politics.
Since tensions between Ukraine and Russia escalated in 2021, the US president has lent his full support to his Ukrainian counterpart.