Volodymyr Zelensky made a career as an actor and comedian in Ukraine, but the success of his role in a local television series propelled him into Ukrainian politics. He decided to run in the 2019 presidential election and was elected with a landslide victory, garnering over 73% of the vote.
He rules Ukraine with a parliamentary majority, but has run into trouble with a scandal involving former US President Donald Trump. Recently, he has been leading his country in the conflict against the Russians, which began in February 2022, because of Ukraine's rapprochement with NATO.
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Summary on Volodymyr Zelensky
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Volodymyr Zelensky was born in Kryvy Rih and comes from a Jewish family.
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He had a career as an actor and comedian and became very famous after starring in the series Servo do Povo .
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he ran for president in 2019 and won the election with 73% of the vote.
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His campaign criticized Ukraine's corruption, promising to solve this problem in the country.
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He led Ukraine in the resistance against the Russians when his country was invaded in February 2022.
Birth and family of Volodymyr Zelensky
Volodimir Olexandrovich Zelensky born in Kryvy Rih on January 25, 1978 . The city is currently part of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast, in the territory of Ukraine, a country that gained its independence in 1991. However, at the time, the city of Zelensky was part of the Soviet Union.
The politician is from a Jewish family , being Zelensky himself, therefore, a Jew. His father, named Oleksandr Zelensky, was a university professor, and his mother, Rymma Zelenska, was an engineer. Zelensky grew up with Russian as his first language.
Life of Volodymyr Zelensky before politics
Volodymyr Zelensky gained international prominence for becoming Ukrainian president, but he had a career artistic before participating in policy . Zelensky studied law at the Kiev National University of Economics between 1995 and 2000. However, he did not pursue a career in his field of academic training.
Zelensky decided to pursue an artistic career by getting involved with theater and comedy groups during his college years. Thus, he founded Kvartal 95, a comedy group that became very famous in Ukraine, conquering space on the country's television grid and performing in Ukraine and neighboring countries.
The growth of Kvartal 95 allowed them to carry out their own productions, which were shown on the main television networks in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky has also worked in several Russian and Ukrainian film productions and even worked as a general producer for a television channel.
In 2015, Zelensky had a consolidated career, but saw his projection in Ukraine increase with the launch from the series Servant of the People , which narrated the story of a history teacher outraged by corruption in his country. This professor became nationally famous and was elected president of Ukraine.
The popularity of the series is explained by the dissatisfaction of the Ukrainian population:
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with the state of the policy in your country;
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with the economic crisis;
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with the crisis with Russia.
Volodymyr Zelensky in politics
The success of Volodymyr Zelensky starring in the series Servant of the People was so big that he and Kvartal 95 decided to launch him as 2019 Presidential Candidate of Ukraine , in an attempt to mimic in real life what had happened in the series. For this, Kvartal 95 decided to create a political party, naming it Servo do Povo, in reference to the successful series.
Volodymyr Zelensky registered his candidacy and adopted a strategy for his campaign:to position himself as someone who would fix and moralize Ukrainian politics. The fact that Zelensky had no experience in politics reinforced your image of being an outsider who would put his country's politics back on track .
He used his acting skills to produce high-impact short videos and avoided the press and political debates, preferring to address his followers on social media. Presentation of him as a “non-political” candidate was successful and won over the Ukrainian electorate.
Zelensky won more than 30% of the votes in the first round. In the second round, won from Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine at the time, with more than 73% of the vote . Zelensky's election was understood by political scientists as a demonstration of the Ukrainian population's displeasure with their country's policy.
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Government of Volodymyr Zelensky
Volodymyr Zelensky assumed the presidency of Ukraine in May 2019 . Early on, he sought support to govern. Thus, one of his first measures was to dissolve the Ukrainian Parliament, with the aim of bringing forward Ukraine's parliamentary elections and thus obtaining the majority of seats.
Zelensky's strategy worked, as his party took more than half of the seats in Parliament, so he could govern with support on L legislative . Zelensky has had to deal with serious problems in his administration, such as his country's relationship with Russia, which has been strained since 2014, when the Russians annexed Crimea and encouraged separatism in the Donbass region.
Zelensky has placed himself in the midst of a political scandal in the United States by accepted air investigate the son of Biden in exchange for one $400 million military aid . Joe Biden was the political opponent of then US President Donald Trump. Zelensky's subservient stance towards the US president was criticized by the Ukrainian population.
→ Volodymyr Zelensky and the war against the Russians
The big problem facing the Ukrainian politician's government is in relation to Russia. Zelensky, being pro-Western, had made a campaign promise announcing that he would seek to stay close to Western powers.
Furthermore, he announced that he would demand the return of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, and an end to Russian interference in Donbass. There have been some negotiations, but the issue has not progressed significantly.
In early 2022, attrition escalated asRussia expressed its dissatisfaction with the possibility of and Ukraine if join to NATO , North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The Russians mobilized troops, and their president, Vladimir Putin, authorized the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. With the war, Zelensky took measures to organize resistance Ukrainian against the Russian invasion , refusing to leave the country and encouraging the population to fight against Russia.
Image credits
[1] Sergei Chuzakov and Shutterstock
[2] Seneline and Shutterstock