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Introduction
Volodymyr Zelensky
Early life and career as an
president of Ukraine
entertainer
Alternate titles: Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Servant of the People and path
to the presidency
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! Presidency of Ukraine

By Michael Ray • Last Updated: Feb 25, 2022 • Edit History

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Volodymyr Zelensky

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Born: January 25, 1978 (age 44) •

Kryvyy Rih • Ukraine

Title / Office: president (2019-),

Ukraine

Political Affiliation: Servant of the

People

Role In: Ukraine scandal

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Volodymyr Zelensky, (born January 25, 1978, Kryvyy Rih,

Ukraine, U.S.S.R. [now in Ukraine]), Ukrainian actor and comedian
who was elected president of Ukraine in 2019. Although he was a
political novice, Zelensky’s anti-corruption platform won him
widespread support, and his significant online following translated
into a solid electoral base. He won a landslide victory over incumbent
Petro Poroshenko in the second round of the 2019 presidential
election.

Early life and career as an entertainer

Zelensky was born to Jewish parents in the industrial metropolis of
Kryvyy Rih in southern Ukraine. When he was a small child, his
family relocated to Erdenet, Mongolia, for four years before returning
to Kryvyy Rih, where Zelensky entered school. Like many people from
Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, he grew up as a native Russian
speaker, but he also acquired fluency in both Ukrainian and English.
In 1995 he entered Kryvyy Rih Economic Institute, the local campus
of Kyiv National Economic University, and in 2000 he graduated
with a law degree.

Although Zelensky was licensed to practice law, his career was

already headed in a different direction. While still a student, he had
become active in theatre, and this would become his primary focus.
In 1997 his performance group, Kvartal 95 (“Quarter 95,” the
neighbourhood in central Kryvyy Rih where Zelensky spent his
childhood), appeared in the televised finals of KVN (Klub vesyólykh i
nakhódchivykh; “Club of the Funny and Inventive People”), a popular
improvisational comedy competition that was broadcast throughout
the Commonwealth of Independent States. Zelensky and Kvartal 95
became regulars on KVN, and they appeared on the program until
2003. That year Zelensky cofounded Studio Kvartal 95, a production
company that would become one of Ukraine’s most successful and
prolific entertainment studios. Zelensky would serve as artistic
director of Studio Kvartal 95 from the company’s creation until 2011,
when he was named general producer of the Ukrainian television
channel Inter TV.
Zelensky left Inter TV in 2012, and in October of that year he and
Kvartal 95 concluded a joint production agreement with the
Ukrainian network 1+1. That network was owned by Ihor
Kolomoisky, one of the wealthiest people in Ukraine, and the
relationship between Zelensky and Kolomoisky would become the
subject of scrutiny when Zelensky declared his intention to enter
politics. In addition to working in television during this period,
Zelensky appeared in a number of feature films, including the
historical farce Rzhevskiy Versus Napoleon (2012) and the romantic
comedies 8 First Dates (2012) and 8 New Dates (2015).

Servant of the People and path to the

presidency
In 2013 Zelensky returned to Kvartal 95 as artistic director, but his
entertainment career would soon intersect with the seismic events
rocking Ukraine’s political landscape. In February 2014 the
government of Ukrainian Pres. Viktor Yanukovych was toppled after
months of popular protests, and that May billionaire Petro
Poroshenko was elected president of Ukraine. With a Russian-backed
insurgency raging in eastern Ukraine and endemic corruption
undermining public confidence in government, Poroshenko struggled
to enact even modest reforms. It was against this backdrop that
Servant of the People premiered on 1+1 in October 2015. Zelensky
was cast as Vasiliy Goloborodko, an everyman history teacher who
becomes a viral Internet phenomenon after a student films him
delivering an impassioned and profanity-laden address against
official corruption. The show was a massive hit, and Goloborodko’s
unlikely path to the presidency of Ukraine would provide something
of a road map for Zelensky. In anticipation of that move, in 2018
Kvartal 95 officially registered Servant of the People as a political
party in Ukraine.

With the Ukrainian economy stalled and Poroshenko’s approval

rating approaching single digits, it seemed likely that the 2019
presidential election would be a repeat of the 2014 contest, with the
incumbent facing Orange Revolution veteran Yulia Tymoshenko.
Instead, more than three dozen candidates entered the race, and
Zelensky emerged as one of the front-runners virtually from the
moment of the declaration of his candidacy. That announcement was
made on 1+1 on December 31, 2018, preempting Poroshenko’s annual
New Year’s address. The provocative move raised questions about the
involvement of 1+1 owner Kolomoisky in Zelensky’s campaign.
Kolomoisky, formerly a staunch Poroshenko ally, had been living in
self-imposed exile since June 2017, after Poroshenko nationalized
PrivatBank, a financial institution that Kolomoisky had cofounded.
Kolomoisky was accused of stealing billions from PrivatBank,
Ukraine’s largest lender, and the Ukrainian government was forced to
inject more than $5.6 billion into the “too big to fail” company to
keep it afloat.

Zelensky took steps to distance himself from Kolomoisky, a task that

was simplified by his unorthodox campaign strategy. He eschewed
detailed policy statements and press conferences in favour of short
speeches or comedy routines posted to YouTube and Instagram. On
March 31, 2019, Zelensky won over 30 percent of the vote in the first
round of the presidential election, and Poroshenko finished a distant
second with 16 percent. Zelensky declined to debate Poroshenko until
two days before the second round of polling would begin, and that
meeting had all the trappings of a sporting event. On April 19, 2019,
tens of thousands gathered at Kyiv’s Olympic Stadium to witness the
confrontation, and, although Poroshenko attempted to portray
Zelensky as a political novice who lacked the fortitude to confront
Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin, he failed to land any significant blows
against his opponent. A second debate was scheduled for later in the
evening, but Zelensky did not attend, stating that there “had been
enough debates for one day.”

Presidency of Ukraine
On April 21 Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine with an
impressive 73 percent of the vote. Within days the president-elect
faced his first foreign policy challenge, when Putin announced his
decision to offer Russian passports to the Ukrainian citizens in
separatist-controlled areas of war-torn eastern Ukraine. The Russian-
backed hybrid war there was entering its fifth year, and hundreds of
thousands of Ukrainians had been displaced by the conflict. Zelensky
ridiculed the offer, responding with a Facebook post that extended
Ukrainian citizenship to Russians and others “who suffer from
authoritarian or corrupt regimes.”

Early challenges and snap election

On May 20, 2019, Zelensky was sworn in as president. He used his

inaugural address, which he delivered in a mix of Russian and
Ukrainian, to call for national unity and to announce the dissolution
of the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council). This move was politically
necessary: his presidential victory did not confer a legislative
mandate, as Servant of the People did not occupy any parliamentary
seats. Snap elections were held on July 21, and Zelensky himself
characterized the contest as “maybe more important than the
presidential election.” Servant of the People won an absolute
majority, capturing 254 of 450 seats (26 seats, representing Crimea—
a Ukrainian autonomous republic that was illegally annexed by
Russia in 2014—and the war zone in the east, were not contested).
The result marked the first time in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history that
a single party could command absolute control over the legislative
agenda.

While Zelensky worked to build his new administration, ties to his

former business partner again became the subject of scrutiny.
Kolomoisky’s media empire had provided a valuable platform for
Zelensky during the presidential campaign, but Zelensky vowed that
no special favours would be granted by his office. Kolomoisky himself
had returned to Ukraine just days before Zelensky’s inauguration; the
billionaire stated that he would not act as a “grey cardinal,” directing
policy from behind the scenes.

Zelensky and U.S. Pres. Donald Trump

In September 2019 Zelensky found his administration thrust into the

centre of a political scandal in the United States when a
whistleblower in the American intelligence community lodged a
formal complaint about the actions of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump. The
matter concerned Trump’s alleged withholding of a significant
military aid package to Ukraine unless Ukraine initiated an
investigation of alleged wrongdoing by former U.S. vice president Joe
Biden and his son Hunter. Hunter Biden had served on the board of
Ukrainian energy conglomerate Burisma Holdings, and Trump
claimed, without evidence, that the elder Biden had used his office to
benefit his son.

In April 2019 Biden had announced that he would seek the

Democratic presidential nomination to challenge Trump in 2020, and
Biden quickly became the party’s front-runner. Contacts between
Trump’s personal lawyer, former New York City mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, and Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, began in
earnest soon afterward, and they predated Zelensky’s inauguration.
These discussions initially focused on claims involving the 2016 U.S.
presidential election and former Trump campaign manager Paul
Manafort, but they soon expanded to include Biden. Zelensky’s
transition team declined a request to meet with Giuliani over what
they saw as a matter of internal U.S. politics, but Trump continued to
pursue the allegations. In a phone call with Zelensky on July 25,
2019, Trump discussed an investigation of the Biden family. Although
Trump admitted that he had ordered the aid package withheld in
anticipation of that call, he claimed that no quid pro quo was offered
or demanded.
Zelensky stated that he would look into the Burisma matter, and he
sacked Lutsenko in August. At that time nearly $400 million in U.S.
military aid remained in limbo, despite its bipartisan authorization by
the U.S. Congress. Those funds were finally released on September 11,
2019, but, by that point, American lawmakers had begun to push for
more information regarding Trump and the details of his July 25 call
with Zelensky. That call and Trump’s alleged attempt to pressure
Zelensky served as the basis for a U.S. House of Representatives
impeachment inquiry that was opened on September 24, 2019.
Trump was convicted by the House but ultimately acquitted by the
Senate, and he responded by purging those officials whom he
considered disloyal. This meant the departure of some of the most
experienced Russia and Ukraine experts from the U.S. national
security staff.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of

Ukraine

As was the case in many countries around the world, daily life in
Ukraine was profoundly affected by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2
pandemic. Zelensky crafted a national mitigation strategy that was
designed to limit the spread of COVID-19, the potentially deadly
disease caused by the virus, but some local politicians resisted
direction from Kyiv. Mayors of several of Ukraine’s largest cities,
feeling empowered by the 2014 government reforms that had
devolved significant autonomy to the local level, clashed with
Zelensky over proposed business closures and lockdown measures.
The tug-of-war between Zelensky and the mayors would have a
significant effect on local elections in October 2020. Regional parties
dominated mayoral races while national parties, including Zelensky’s
Servant of the People, struggled. The poor electoral performance also
reflected an overall decline in Zelensky’s public approval. The
populist reform platform that had swept him into office appeared to
be stalled, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine remained unsettled.
While Zelensky did manage to jump-start his political agenda with
the passage of a law intended to curb the influence of oligarchs, the
Russian-backed insurgency in the Donbas soon devolved into the
largest threat to European stability since World War II.

&

Volodymyr Zelensky
Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky delivering a video address after the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, February 25, 2022.
Image: The Presidential Office of Ukraine (CC BY-SA 4.0)

In late 2021 Russia began a massive buildup of troops and matériel

along its border with Ukraine. Additional Russian forces were sent to
Belarus—ostensibly for joint exercises with that country’s military—
and a sizable Russian naval flotilla was assembled in the Black Sea.
Western intelligence agencies stated that the moves were a clear
precursor to an invasion, but Putin denied any such intent. Western
leaders carried on negotiations with both Putin and Zelensky in an
effort to prevent the bloodshed that appeared inevitable, but Russia’s
military preparations continued. On February 21, 2022, Putin
announced that he would recognize the independence of the self-
proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and dispatch
“peacekeepers” to both regions. Western leaders responded by
leveling a new round of sanctions, and, in the early morning hours of
February 24, Zelensky delivered a televised plea for peace directly to
the Russian people. Shortly thereafter, at about 6:00 AM Moscow
time, Putin announced the beginning of a “special military
operation,” and Russian cruise missiles began to rain down on targets
in Ukraine. The unprovoked attack drew condemnation from leaders
around the world, and Zelensky tried to rally support from the
international community. Russian troops and armoured vehicles
poured into Ukraine from Russia, Russian-occupied Crimea, and
Belarus, and scores of military personnel and civilians were killed in
the first day of fighting. As world leaders announced increasingly
tough sanctions against Russia, Zelensky tried to rally support from
abroad, warning that a “new Iron Curtain” was descending on
Europe.

Michael Ray