Zelenskyy

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (also spelled Zelenskiy or Zelensky), born to Jewish parents on January 23, 1978, grew up as a native Russion speaker in Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine. He studied law at the Kyiv National Economic University then became an Entertainer performing comedy. He created production company Kvartal 95 which produced films and TV shows. Its TV series Servant of the People aired from 2015 to 2019 and met with great success. Zelenskyy played the role of a history teacher who through a strange twist of fate became the president of Ukraine. In 2018 employees of Kvartal 95 created a political party also called Servant of the People. Zelenskyy contested the election as an anti-establishment and anti-corruption candidate, mirroring his character in the fictional TV series, and became President of Ukraine in 2019 in real life in a stunning case of life imitating art. His efforts to achieve a resolution of the Russia-sponsored separatist fight in Donbas did not bear fruit. Russia amassed an overwhelming force and invaded Ukraine on 3 fronts on February 24, 2022. It was widely expected by military analysts that Kyiv would fall within days and that Zelenskyy would flee to form a government in exile. To the world’s surprise, he stayed and galvanized his military and his people to valiantly resist the Russian advance. The diminutive young comedian-turned-president turned into a great wartime Commander, earning universal admiration and reinvigorated support from allied leaders who had been ready to leave him for dead. Zelenskyy’s dramatic transformation has captured the world’s imagination and has been described as akin to Charlie Chaplin morphing into Winston Churchill. In the meantime, The Adversary, the belligerent Vladimir Putin, has revealed himself as a ruthless rogue actor willing to upend an international rules-based order carefully constructed over decades post WWII.