Prior to becoming the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky played the president in
a comedy on TV.
Here's what else you may not have known about Ukraine's comedian-turned-wartime leader.
Volodymyr Zelensky was born in Kryvyi Rih, a city in eastern Ukraine in 1978.
His family is Jewish and had witnessed horrors during World War II.
According to a video shared by The Kyiv Post on YouTube, the president narrated his story
when he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and revealed that his grandfather
was the only one who managed to survive during the Holocaust.
The three brothers of Zelensky's grandfather, their parents and other members of the family
were shot by German occupants who invaded Ukraine.
When Zelenksy declared that he was going to be a part of the 2019 elections, he received
backlash from other Jewish people in Ukraine.
His critics were afraid.
A Ukrainian rabbi, Shmuel Kaminezki explained,
"They said, 'He should not run because we will have pogroms here again in two years
if things go wrong.'"
Still, the backlash was unexpected because religion was hardly discussed during the elections.
Furthermore, Ukraine had a Jewish Prime Minister in 2019, Volodymyr Groysman.
However, according to Kaminezki, certain members of the Jewish community were terrified of
attracting attention.
The rabbi explained,
"They thought that if it is too big it will just cause antisemitism."
For his part, Volodymyr Zelensky didn't focus on his background but ensured that he was
transparent about it during the elections.
He said,
"The fact that I am a Jew is about the 20th question among my characteristics."
As a young man, Volodymyr Zelensky was intrigued by comedy.
He was particularly interested in exploring improv and sketch comedy and was a fan of
a popular show called KVN that welcomed participants from across the old Soviet Union to entertain
their audiences.
Volodymyr Zelensky was just 17 years old when he joined the Kryvyi Rih squad as a budding
comic.
Later, he worked with his friends to start a comedy troupe known as the 95th Quarter,
or Kvartal 95.
The name was a reference to an area in their city.
Zelensky studied law at the Kyiv National Economic University and graduated in 2000,
three years after he started Kvartal 95.
By 2003, the comedy troupe had ventured into television and was producing TV shows.
However, Zelensky's mom wasn't happy about her son's decision to chase a career as a
comic and hoped that he would work as a lawyer instead.
Zelensky was undeterred and continued working as an entertainer, participating in tours
and performing for his audiences.
Volodymyr Zelensky had to be patient while trying to make a name for himself in the entertainment
space.
It would be years before he would achieve success in the competitive industry and become
a household name.
He worked as an actor and his films were often made in Russian, a move that allowed him to
reach more people.
According to Forbes Ukraine, by the year 2012, Zelensky's company was doing well for itself
and its income was reportedly $15 million.
Zelensky has worn a number of hats in the past and has worked as an actor, producer,
writer, and director.
Some of his films from the comedy genre include a 2018 film titled Me, You, He, She, the 2014
movie Love In Vegas, and a TV film that was released back in 2005 called The Three Musketeers.
Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, said in an interview with the Diplomatic Courier
that she wants to use her position to talk about social causes close to her heart.
She said that she aimed to learn as much as she could by interacting with first ladies
from other countries such as Canada, France, Israel, and Japan, telling the outlet:
"We should care about the issues that concern the whole world — health, education, gender
equality."
She added that as a parent, she's quite invested in children's nutrition and its connection
to both their health and education.
This prompted the First Lady to work with Ukraine's ministries to focus on a new school
nutrition program for students across the country.
Zelenska told Diplomatic Courier:
"[The program] can improve their health so that they can improve their learning."
According to a report by 1+1, The State Food and Consumer Service conducted inspections
in Ukrainian schools and discovered that there was a rise in the amount of unsafe food items
present in schools across the country.
Zelenska's nutrition program aimed to introduce reforms in Ukrainian schools to tackle the
issue on a larger scale.
She was quoted as saying,
"Five days a week, children spend almost all day away from home and cannot control what
they eat and what they buy in the school cafeteria."
Volodymyr Zelensky's big break on television was 2015's Servant of the People, a TV show
where he played the role of a high school teacher.
The plot of the show is intriguing: the teacher becomes a popular figure among the Ukrainian
public after they watch a YouTube video of him speaking at length against corruption.
The teacher is ultimately chosen to lead Ukraine as its president after receiving more than
60% of the votes.
The TV show was produced by Zelensky's company, Kvartal 95.
Its team made the conscious decision to highlight corruption in the country while openly mocking
Ukraine's political elite.
Zelensky told Foreign Policy:
"The best way to make sure Ukrainians don't come to accept the current state of affairs
as normal is to put these [political] absurdities in a new format."
The TV show was wildly popular and bigwigs in the TV industry got involved.
Fox Studios bought adaptation rights and Netflix decided to acquire the show and stream it
for subscribers around the world.
"Now, I'm very popular in USA."
The popularity of Servant of the People inspired the team behind Kvartal 95 to form a political
party called ... the Servant of the People.
Volodymyr Zelensky rose to the challenge in 2018 and declared that he would be running
for president.
His campaign was unlike any other.
As a comic, Zelensky was often spotted at tours around Ukraine where he made it a point
to crack jokes on his opponents.
He declared that he would fight corruption in the country if he was chosen as the next
president.
Additionally, he embraced social media to talk about his campaign.
It worked: Zelensky won over 73% of the votes and was sworn in as the president in May 2019.
Zelensky made several promises during the campaign and said that he would work hard
to resolve differences with the Russian government and bring peace to the Donbass, a disputed
region in eastern Ukraine.
"Every time Zelensky speaks Russian the crowd here starts to boos and says shame."
He didn't really specify how he would achieve his goals or overcome the difficulties that
his predecessors had faced but still impressed Ukrainian voters.
Not everyone was thrilled when it was announced that Volodymyr Zelensky was going to be Ukraine's
next president, and several individuals expressed their doubts about his ability to lead Ukraine.
Zelensky told the Ukrainian public after winning the election in 2019,
"I promise, I will never let you down."
A journalist and researcher from Kyiv, Olga Tokariuk, said that Zelensky was simply chosen
because he was recognizable to Ukranians.
She also added that the comedian turned presidential candidate made "vague" promises and didn't
have a "concrete electoral program."
Meanwhile, an international relations professor from the University of Melbourne, Sara Meger
pointed out that the Ukrainian public was frustrated with the government and no longer
wanted a small number of rich people leading them.
Meger added,
"[Zelensky] represented a radical shift away from that oligarchic power that had a stranglehold
on Ukrainian politics."
Additionally, Moscow's reporter for The New Yorker, Joshua Yaffa told NPR in a conversation
that Volodymyr Zelensky had an advantage during the elections.
He said,
"[I]t was clear the Ukrainian people were desperate for an alternative – any alternative
— and Zelensky showed up on the political scene and benefited from his lack of experience,
frankly."
President Volodymyr Zelensky is a lot more interested in communicating with his fellow
Ukrainians on social media than he is in engaging with the press.
In his first year as president, Zelensky mostly avoided traditional media outlets.
This was also a trend that was observed during the elections when Zelensky often preferred
to communicate on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter instead of talking
to journalists.
Local media outlets weren't pleased and alleged that the president was running away from questions.
The one exception was a press marathon of sorts that was held in October 2019.
Zelensky started speaking to members of the press from 10 a.m. and continued engaging
with around 300 reporters until well past midnight, dealing with over 500 questions.
Even during the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian crisis, Volodymyr Zelensky regularly posted on his
social media accounts on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram to ensure that he was
interacting directly with the public and keeping them updated.
Early in his presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky was a part of a phone call in July 2019 that
would be instrumental in Donald Trump's first impeachment.
"We had, I think, good phone call.
It was normal.
We spoke about many things."
In the phone call, the Ukrainian president requested Trump send more aid from the U.S.,
to which Trump said that he needed Zelensky to investigate Democrats as a, quote, "favor."
Before Trump was impeached, the U.S. House of Representatives claimed that Trump allegedly
held onto millions of dollars in military aid that were meant for Ukraine.
The U.S. House went on to claim that Trump withheld the military aid in order to pressure
Zelensky to state that he was launching an investigation into Trump's political rival
Joe Biden.
According to ABC News, Trump apparently held onto as much as $400 million that was earmarked
to help Ukraine, and later claimed that he didn't do anything wrong.
Also, Zelensky tried his best to arrange a White House meeting with Trump so that the
United States would be seen as an ally of Ukraine in confronting Russian aggression.
"If this way will help Ukraine I'm ready for next call with Mr. Trump."
However, Zelensky never succeeded in arranging the meeting.
He is on better terms with Biden and even visited the White House in 2021.
During the 2019 election campaign, Volodymyr Zelensky had assured his fellow Ukrainians
that he would work on mending things with Russia and figure out a way to move forward.
However, this was more complicated than he realized.
Zelensky tried his best to initiate dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin in order
to find a solution to Russia's ongoing occupation of Ukraine's Crimea and certain regions in
eastern Ukraine.
Unfortunately, Russia didn't participate in the talks and didn't seem to want to implement
a permanent ceasefire or call off its troops from Ukraine.
Right before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine took place, the Zelensky spoke about
how Putin had ignored his requests, saying,
"I initiated a telephone call with the president of the Russian federation.
Result: silence."
Zelensky went on to add that Russia had around 200,000 troops, as well as thousands of combat
vehicles on Ukraine's borders.
Additionally, Zelensky requested Russia to avoid going into war, saying,
"Who can stop [the war]?
People.
These people are among you, I am sure."
"It just became about our independence.
That's it.
That we are deciding what we'll want.
We are deciding what we'll do."
Prior to the 2022 invasion by Russia, members of the public weren't pleased with Zelensky.
His approval rating even dropped to 25% by October 2021.
The main reason was the fact that the president had not managed to find a solution for the
conflict in Donbass, coupled with economic issues such as a rise in the cost of gas,
electricity, and water.
Olga Oleinikova, Director of the Ukraine Democracy Initiative at the University of Technology
Sydney, said in a statement,
"People are really not happy with him at the moment."
Additionally, corruption challenges still plagued the government, something that didn't
help Zelensky's reputation.
There was another problem.
Ukraine had seen a common trend of people quickly losing faith in a new president because
voters often had extremely high expectations for what Zelensky could accomplish and found
his lack of tangible achievements unacceptable.
Additionally, former candidates had also often disappointed their voters by not addressing
their election pledges after being sworn in.
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