New Delhi: In 2015, Ukraine fell in love with the satirical show Servant of the People, where a school teacher played by Volodomyr Zelenskyy accidentally becomes the president of the country. Such was the success of the idea in fact, that a few years later it helped Zelenskyy chart a career change and become the actual president of the country in 2019.
Just two years into his presidency, however, the 44-year-old former comic now finds himself in the position of a war-time leader and at alleged risk of assassination (Zelenskky has said he is Russia’s ‘target No. 1’), as Russia launched a full-pledged invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea Thursday.
Earlier this week, Putin ordered a military operation in Ukraine, days after officially recognising the so-called people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as “independent states”.
As missiles hit residential buildings in the Ukraine capital Saturday, and the US and EU announced direct sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister, Zelenskyy took to Instagram to clear misinformation that he had told the Ukrainian army to lay down their weapons.
Jewish heritage
Zelenskyy was born on 25 January, 1978, to Jewish parents in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, back when Ukraine was part of the Soviet republic. Kryvyi Rih is primarily a Russian-speaking industrial town, making Russian Zelenskyy’s native language.
Though he doesn’t speak of his Jewish heritage very often, in January 2020, he visited Israel to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp alongside then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At a briefing on the sidelines of the event, Zelenskyy narrated a story of four brothers who had served in the Soviet armed forces that fought Nazi Germany during World War II. One of the four was his grandfather. “Three of them and their parents and families were shot dead by Nazi occupants who invaded Ukraine,” he said.
“The fourth brother was fighting at the front. He survived World War II, contributing to the victory over Nazism and its inhumane ideology. Two years after the war, he had a son, and in 31 years, he had a grandson. In 40 more years, that grandson became president and he is standing before you today, Mr. Prime Minister.”
It’s no surprise then that when Putin Thursday pledged to oversee a “de-Nazification” of Ukraine, a confused Zelenskyy replied: “How can I be a Nazi?”
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Career in showbiz
Before entering politics in 2018, Zelenskyy had a successful career in entertainment as a comedian and actor on television, even though he has a law degree from the Kyiv National Economic University. It was during his time as a student that he became active in theatre.
In 2003, he co-founded a successful TV production company named after his comedy team, Kvartal 95 (Quarter 95), which is said to have made him millions.
He also starred in hit films such as Love in the Big City (2009) and Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon (2012).
Zelenskky was best known for starring in a satirical television series Servant of the People, launched in 2015 and renewed for three seasons. The series even led to a feature film on the same subject. In the series, his character accidentally becomes Ukrainian president.
Zelenskyy used the show’s popularity to launch his presidential campaign in late 2018.
Even his political party, formed in late 2017, is named after the show. The centrist Servant of the People Party currently enjoys 22 seats more than a majority in the Ukrainian parliament.
Landslide victory in 2019
Zelenskyy won the 2019 presidential elections in Ukraine, defeating incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who had been in power since 2014 — ever since an uprising overthrew the country’s previous pro-Russian government. It was a landslide victory, with Zelenskyy winning roughly 70 per cent of votes.
After admitting defeat, Poroshenko had warned voters that Zelenskyy was too inexperienced to stand up to Russia effectively. “You may just look at the celebrations in the Kremlin on the occasion of the elections. They believe that with a new inexperienced Ukrainian President Ukraine could be quickly returned to Russia’s orbit of influence,” he tweeted.
Eliminating corruption was the main focus of Zelenskyy’s election campaign, but he also spoke about wanting to put a stop to the “Donbass war” in eastern Ukraine. “I would put corruption to the top of the problems to tackle and I would also want to stop the Donbass war because we don’t want our people to perish any more,” he told Vice News in April 2019.
Despite running on the promise of transparency, however, the former comedian faced major scrutiny over his ties to Ukrainian oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky, with some claiming the latter funded his campaign. Zelenskyy had also announced his candidacy on ‘1+1’, a major media group in Ukraine of which Kolomoisky is the main shareholder.
Pandora Papers scandal, Trump election controversy
In October 2021, files obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) claimed the Ukrainian president and his business partners established a network of offshore companies back in 2012.
Known as the Pandora Papers, the leak had exposed the secret offshore accounts of 35 world leaders (which included Zelenskyy), including current and former heads of state, as well as more than 100 billionaires, celebrities, and business leaders.
The Pandora Papers claimed that ahead of the 2019 election, Zelenskyy had transferred his stake in one of the offshore companies to a top aide. In response, Zelenskyy’s office told reporters that he did so to protect himself from “aggressive actions of the authorities of the time”.
After the Pandora Papers leak, some reports suggested it could cost Zelenskyy a second presidential term. His current term ends in 2024.
In September 2019, Zelenskyy found himself at the centre of a sticky situation when it was alleged that then US President Donald Trump had pressured him for compromising material on current US president and then Trump rival Joe Biden’s son.
Trump had claimed that Biden used his office to benefit his son who had served on the board of Ukrainian energy conglomerate Burisma Holdings.
In an interview with Axios last January, the Ukrainian leader said he was offended to read media reports that said Trump “pressured” him, adding that he is a president who cannot be pressured.
“The publishing of our conversation — I think this is very wrong. It was not Ukraine that made it public… Neither of us had the right to make such things public because these are personal things,” he added.
Asked if he was angry with Trump, Zelenskky had laughed: “A little bit”.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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