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https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-is-volodymyr-zelensky-ukrainian-president-11646161781

Who Is Volodymyr Zelensky? What to

Know About Ukraine’s President
How a television comedian rose to become the country’s wartime leader

By James Hookway
March 1, 2022 2:14 pm ET

President Volodymyr Zelensky has become the face of Ukraine’s resistance against
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invading forces. But Mr. Zelensky came into
power with little traditional political experience. Before he was elected, he was

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best known for playing a television role as an ordinary schoolteacher accidentally
catapulted into power. The show, “Servant of the People,” ran for four years,
a name.
making him a household WSJ membership.
Special O!er
Since the Russian strikes began on Feb. 24, Mr. Zelensky has captured the world’s
imagination, often dressing in ballistic vests as he urges people to press the fight
Less than US $1/week
during videos he posts to Telegram, Facebook and Instagram from the center of
Kyiv. At other times, the 44-year-old has harangued Western leaders to step up
their sanctions against Mr. Putin, VIEW
speaking regularly with figures such as U.S.
OPTIONS
President Biden, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President
Emmanuel Macron.

As the Russian onslaught increases, with air and missile strikes widening to hit
more civilian targets, Mr. Zelensky knows that he is at the head of the Kremlin’s
kill-or-capture list, but insists that neither he nor his family will leave as he tries
to keep his battered country together.

How long has Volodymyr Zelensky been president of Ukraine?

Mr. Zelensky was elected president in 2019, defeating the incumbent Petro
Poroshenko by casting himself as an antiestablishment outsider bent on cleaning
up corruption and securing better relations with Moscow. His pitch was largely
based on the role he played on his TV show, where he portrayed an ordinary man
thrown into the presidency to clean up the country. Even his political party was
named after the show.

Mr. Zelensky visited a front in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region this past October.
PHOTO: UKRAINIAN PRESIDENCY/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

Fragments of a downed aircraft were strewn across a Kiev neighborhood on Feb. 25.
PHOTO: OLEKSANDR RATUSHNIAK/ASSOCIATED PRESS

How has Zelensky handled the invasion?

Early on, Mr. Zelensky directed much of his energy toward projecting a sense of
calm as Russian forces steadily built along Ukraine’s borders to eventually total as
many as 190,000 troops. He said U.S. warnings of an imminent invasion were
overblown and were damaging Ukraine’s economy. Mr. Zelensky pointed to an
even larger Russian buildup last spring that was eventually withdrawn.

But after the first Russian strikes began to hit Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on
Feb. 24, he pivoted hard toward shoring up Ukraine’s defense, securing as much
Western assistance as he could obtain. With Russian propaganda claiming he had
already fled the country, he made a hand-shot video of himself out on the street in
front of the presidential palace in Kyiv to urge on Ukrainians in their defense of
the country. It drew millions of views on Telegram and Facebook. Gone were the
suits and ties, in came military sweatshirts.

Mr. Zelensky spoke frequently with Western leaders, urging them to increase
sanctions on Moscow in the hope of breaking the Russian advance. As he pleaded
with European leaders in a video call to take tougher action, he warned them that
this might be the last time they saw him alive, according to several diplomats.

“The silence in the room was impressive,” a senior European Union official said.
Shortly after, the 27-nation bloc moved to significantly expand the range of
measures as the West hardened its response to Moscow’s aggression.

From left, Mr. Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President
Vladimir Putin in Paris in December. Mr. Zelensky has urged the West to step up sanctions
on Russia.
PHOTO: ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

How has Zelensky’s stance against Russia evolved?

Mr. Zelensky initially sought a rapprochement with Russia when he was elected
president in 2019. Ukraine had been at loggerheads with the Kremlin since 2014,
when Russian forces annexed the Black Sea port of Crimea and stirred up a
rebellion that led to two pro-Russian regions breaking away from Kyiv’s control.
Mr. Zelensky pledged to improve relations with Mr. Putin, and had some early
successes. He secured a prisoner exchange with Russia and moved toward a deal
on how to build on a 2015 cease-fire agreement.

Street protests against his plans forced him to change tack. Western diplomats
warned him that Mr. Putin was trying to get him to sign an agreement that would
provide him with long-term influence over Ukraine’s future via Russia’s proxies in
the breakaway regions, with the goal of barring the country from joining the EU or
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Mr. Zelensky instead turned toward persuading NATO to engage in a closer

relationship with Ukraine while launching a popular campaign to win back control
of Crimea. A person close to him said Russia had begun to see him as being too
similar to Mr. Poroshenko, whom he succeeded as president, and someone
Moscow saw as intent on pushing Ukraine closer to the West.

Political analysts said the prospect of Ukraine aligning itself more closely with the
West had enraged Mr. Putin, who has long been trying to restore Russia’s sphere
of influence, which had been curtailed severely since the end of the Cold War more
than 30 years earlier.

On March 1, the fifth day of the invasion, Mr. Zelensky said the Ukrainian people
were now fighting to become equal members of the EU—with many paying the
ultimate price.

Supporters crowded around Mr. Zelensky as he arrived at parliament in Kiev for a swearing-in ceremony in
2019.
PHOTO: SERGEI SUPINSKY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

How did Zelensky rise from television comedian to president?

Mr. Zelensky studied law at university but after graduating entered the
entertainment business, founding a television-production company. He became
famous for his skits, including one where he and some accomplices dropped their
trousers and pretended to play a piano with something other than their hands.

It was his TV show “Servant of the People” that captured the mood of the country
when the program first aired in 2015, however. Mr. Zelensky played a humble
schoolteacher who candidly ranted on a video about the everyday corruption
many Ukrainians need to contend with. The clip went viral, launching a political
career that ultimately propelled his character into the presidential palace.

The success of the show convinced Mr. Zelensky that he should try his hand at
politics for real. His campaign echoed many of the themes he explored in the TV
show and his political party carried the same name, “Servant of the People.” He
won the second-round runoff against the incumbent, Mr. Poroshenko, with about
73% of the vote.

What is Zelensky’s family background?

Born on Jan. 25, 1978, Mr. Zelensky grew up in a gritty, Russian-speaking region in
southeast Ukraine. His background was Jewish; several family members died in
the Holocaust while his grandfather served in World War II as an officer in the
Soviet army. His father, a mathematician, and his mother, an engineer, chose to
stay in Ukraine while many other Jews departed for the U.S. or Israel when the
former Soviet Union permitted them to emigrate. Childhood friends recall how he
stood out for his earring and his good grades in school. He later obtained a law
degree at Kyiv National Economic University.

Mr. Zelensky himself has made little of his Jewish identity, saying in 2020 that he
came from an ordinary Soviet Jewish family and that most such families weren’t
religious. This appears to ignore how Jews in the former Soviet Union, including
Ukraine, largely had to suppress their religious identity and were viewed as
outsiders. Some commentators have suggested this has informed Mr. Zelensky’s
own self-image as an outsider, reflected in both his TV work and his presidential
campaign in 2019.

Ukrainians appear more favorably disposed toward Jews than do the people of
other countries that were in the Soviet bloc. A Pew Research Center poll in 2019
found that 5% of Ukrainians were unwilling to accept Jewish people as fellow
citizens, compared with 18% in Poland, 19% of Czechs and 22% in Romania. And
Ukraine’s prime minister when Mr. Zelensky became president, Volodymyr
Groysman, is also Jewish.

When Mr. Putin said Russia’s invasion was designed to “de-Nazify” Ukraine’s
leadership—a potent slur in Russia, referring to World War II—Mr. Zelensky was
quick to ridicule the Russian leader’s claims.
 Mr. Zelensky met with President Trump on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in
New York in 2019.
PHOTO: SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

What happened between Zelensky and Donald Trump?

Shortly after becoming Ukraine’s president, Mr. Zelensky was thrust into the
center of U.S. politics after President Donald Trump was accused of pressuring
him in a telephone call to investigate his chief rival at the time, Joe Biden.
An impeachment resolution in the House of Representatives alleged that Mr.
Trump had made the provision of $391 million in U.S. security aid contingent on
Mr. Zelensky publicly announcing a probe. After Mr. Trump’s actions came to
light, the resolution charges, he released the aid, which was meant to strengthen
Ukrainian forces in the eastern part of the country.

Mr. Trump rejected allegations of wrongdoing and, while he was impeached in the
House, he was acquitted by the Senate.

Mr. Biden went on to be elected president.

This article might be updated.

Write to James Hookway at James.Hookway@wsj.com

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