Volodymyr Zelenskyy Biography: Birth, Age, Early Life, Education, Entertainment Career, path to Presidency, Political Views, and More

Volodymyr Zelenskyy Biography: He is the current President of Ukraine. He was born on January 25, 1978, in Kryvyy Rih, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. (now in Ukraine). He is a Ukrainian politician, former actor, and comedian. In 2019, he was elected president of Ukraine. Although he was a political novice, his anti-corruption platform won him huge support. Also, his significant online following changed into a solid electoral base. In the second round of the presidential election (2019), he won a victory over incumbent Petro Poroshenko. Take a look at Volodymyr Zelenskyy's early life, family, a career as an entertainer, path to the presidency, etc.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Key Facts

Volodymyr Zelenskyy Biography: Early Life, Family, Marriage, Children, Education

He was born on January 25, 1978, to Jewish parents in Kryvyy Rih, then in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. His father's name is Oleksandr Zelenskyy, and his mother's name is Rymma Zelenska. When Zelensky was a small child, his family relocated to Erdenet, Mongolia for four years, and he started going to school. Later, they returned to Kryvyy Rih. Like various people from Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, he also grew up as a native Russian speaker. He gained fluency in both Ukrainian and English. He went to Kryvyy Rih Economic Institute, the local campus of Kyiv National Economic University, in 1995, and he graduated with a law degree in 2000.

He was married to Olena Kiyashko in 2003. He went to school with her. The couple have two children, namely, Aleksandra, daughter, and  Kirill, son. In 2014, in Zelenskyy's movie 8 New Dates, his daughter played Sasha, the daughter of the protagonist. She also participated in the show in 2016 called "The Comedy Comet Company Comedy's Kids" and won it. 

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Career as an Entertainer

His career was already headed in various directions. When he was a student, he had become active in the theatre, and his primary focus was on this. His performance group, Kvartal 95, appeared in the televised finals of KVN (Klub vesyólykh i nakhódchivykh; "Club of the Funny and Inventive People") in 1997. It was a popular improvisational comedy competition, and it was broadcast throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States. 

On KVN, Zelensky and Kvartal 95 became regulars and appeared on the programme until 2003. He also co-founded Studio Kvartal 95. It was a production company that became one of Ukraine's most successful and prolific entertainment studios.

From the creation of Studio Kvartal 95 until 2011, Zelensky served as artistic director. He was named general producer of the Ukrainian television channel Inter TV.

In 2012, he left Inter TV, and in the same year, in October, he and Kvartal 95 concluded a joint production agreement with the Ukrainian network 1+1. Ihor Kolomoisky, who was one of the wealthiest people in Ukraine, owned that network. The relationship between Zelensky and Kolomoisky would become the subject of scrutiny after the declaration by Zelensky of his intention to enter politics. During this period, while working in television, Zelensky appeared in various feature films, including the historical farce Rzhevskiy Versus Napoleon (2012) and the romantic comedies 8 First Dates (2012) and 8 New Dates (2015). 

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Path to the Presidency

As an artistic director, Zelensky returned to Kvartal 95 in 2013, but his entertainment career would soon intersect with the seismic events rocking Ukraine's political landscape. After months of popular protests, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's government was overthrown in February 2014, and billionaire Petro Poroshenko was elected President of the country.

In eastern Ukraine, a Russian-backed insurgency was raging and endemic corruption was undermining public confidence in the government, Poroshenko struggled to enact modest reforms. Against this backdrop, Servant of the People premiered on 1+1 in October 2015. Zelensky cast Vasiliy Goloborodko, who was an everyman history teacher. It became a viral internet phenomenon and addressed official corruption. The show was a massive hit, and Goloborodko’s path to the presidency of Ukraine would provide a roadmap for Zelensky. In 2018, Zelenskyy's production company Kvartal 95 members registered a new political party known as Servant of the People. It had the same name as the television programme that Zelensky had started over the previous three years. 

On December 31, less than four months before the election, he announced his candidacy for president of Ukraine on the New Year's Eve evening show on the TV channel 1+1 after a few months of ambiguous statements. That time, his announcement upstaged the New Year's Eve address of President Petro Poroshenko on the same channel. On this, Zelensky said that it was unintentional and attributed it to a technical glitch.

His presidential campaign against the incumbent Petro Poroshenko was almost entirely virtual. Instead of traditional campaign rallies, Zelensky conducted stand-up comedy routines across Ukraine with his production company, Kvartal 95. He showed and styled himself as an anti-establishment and anti-corruption figure. A few days before the election on April 16, 2019, 20 Ukrainian news outlets called on Zelenskyy to "stop avoiding journalists". He, in return, said that he was not hiding from journalists but did not want to go to talk shows where "people of the old power" were "just doing PR".

Before the elections, Zelensky put together a team that consisted of former Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk and others. If he became the president of Ukraine, he would develop the economy and attract investment to the country via "a restart of the judicial system" and restore confidence in the state. A tax amnesty was also proposed by him and a 5 percent flat tax for big businesses could be increased "in dialogue with them and if everyone agrees." On March 31, Zelensky won both the first round of elections and the run-off election on April 21, 2019. 

On April 21, 2019, Zelensky became the President of Ukraine, beating the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, with nearly 73 percent of the vote to Poroshenko's 25 percent. 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Presidency

As previously stated, Zelensky was elected President of Ukraine on April 21, 2019, with an impressive 73 percent of the vote. A few days after his presidency, he faced a foreign policy challenge when Putin announced his decision to issue Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens in separatist-controlled areas of war-torn eastern Ukraine. Zelensky ridiculed the offer and responded with a Facebook post that extended Ukrainian citizenship to Russians and others "who suffer from authoritarian or corrupt regimes."

Zelenskyy became the first Jewish President of Ukraine. Zelenskyy restored the Ukrainian citizenship of Mikheil Saakashvili on May 28. The Ukrainian parliament rejected Zelensky's first proposal to change the electoral system. In addition to this, on June 6, lawmakers refused to include Zelensky's initiative on reinforcing criminal liability for illegal enrichment on the parliament's agenda. Instead, it included a similar bill proposed by a group of deputies. In addition, in June 2019, it was announced that the president's third major initiative would be submitted after the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election. The major initiative was to remove immunity from lawmakers, diplomats, and judges. Zelenskyy ordered the cancellation of the annual Kyiv Independence Day Parade on Maidan Nezalezhnosti on July 8, and the reason for this was cited as cost. He highlighted that the day would "honour heroes" on Independence Day and that the format would be new. He proposed spending the money that would have been used to finance the parade on veterans. Zelensky's party also proposed reforming Ukraine's media laws in 2020 to increase competition and loosen the dominance of Ukrainian oligarchs on television and radio broadcasters. 

A bill was passed by the parliament in January 2021, updating and reforming Ukraine's referendum laws, which were declared by the Ukrainian Constitutional Court unconstitutional in 2018. One of Zelensky's campaign promises was to fix the referendum law. Zelensky submitted a bill to the Verkhovna Rada in June 2021 creating a public registry of Ukrainian oligarchs. That means banning them from participating in privatisations of state-owned companies and disallowing them from contributing financially to politicians. Zelensky's goal was supported by the opposition party's goal of reducing oligarchs' influence on politics in Ukraine. In September 2021, the bill was passed into law.

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