Volodymyr Zelenskyy, born 25 January 1978 is a Ukrainian politician and former comedian and actor who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019.
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| Prime Minister |
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| Preceded by | Petro Poroshenko |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 25 January 1978 Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine) |
| Political party | Independent |
| Other political affiliations |
Servant of the People (2018–present) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent |
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| Residence | Mariinskyi Palace |
| Alma mater | Kyiv National Economic University (LLB) |
| Occupation |
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Born to a Ukrainian Jewish family, Zelenskyy grew up as a native Russian speaker in Kryvyi Rih, a major city of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine. Prior to his acting career, he obtained a degree in law from the Kyiv National Economic University. He then pursued a career in comedy and created the production company Kvartal 95, which produced films, cartoons, and TV shows including the TV series Servant of the People, in which Zelenskyy played a fictional Ukrainian president. The series aired from 2015 to 2019 and was immensely popular. A political party with the same name as the TV show was created in March 2018 by employees of Kvartal 95.
Zelenskyy announced his candidacy in the 2019 presidential election on the evening of 31 December 2018, alongside the New Year’s Eve address of then-president Petro Poroshenko on the TV channel 1+1. A political outsider, he had already become one of the frontrunners in opinion polls for the election. He won the election with 73.23 percent of the vote in the second round, defeating Poroshenko. He has positioned himself as an anti-establishment and anti-corruption figure.
As president, Zelenskyy has been a proponent of e-government and of unity between the Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking parts of the country’s population. His communication style makes extensive use of social media, particularly Instagram. His party won a landslide victory in the snap legislative election held shortly after his inauguration as president. During the first two years of his administration, Zelenskyy oversaw the lifting of legal immunity for members of parliament (the Verkhovna Rada), the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recession, and some limited progress in tackling corruption in Ukraine.