Volodymyr Zelenskyy
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| Volodymyr Zelenskyy | |
| Known for | 6th President of Ukraine |
|---|---|
| Birth | January 25, 1978 |
| Death | |
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (Володимир Олександрович Зеленський) is a politician who was a former actor and comedian. He has served as the sixth and current President of Ukraine since 2019.
Early life
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was born on January 25, 1978, in Soviet Ukraine to Jewish parents, Oleksandr Zelenskyy and Rymma Zelenska.
He earned a law degree from the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics, which was a department of Kyiv National Economic University at the time, although he never worked in the field of law.
Presidency
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was inaugurated as the sixth President of Ukraine on May 20, 2019.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
Prior to Zelenskyy's presidency
on February 18, 2014, the five-day Revolution of Dignity began. It was a deadly riot, between people protesting corruption in government and the riot police, that took place in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. On February 20, Russia invaded Ukrainian territory in the Crimean Peninsula. On February 22, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych from office.
Russia illegally annexed Crimea, on March 18, 2014, when Vladimir Putin signed the treaty of accession with Crimean leaders in Moscow, the Russian capital.
Under Zelenskyy's presidency
In June 2019, then-United States president Donald Trump held back military equipment that the US Congress approved to be sent to Ukraine in their fight against invasion by Russia. Trump wanted Zelenskyy to give him information related to an unfounded conspiracy theory wherein then-Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, pressured Ukraine. This pressure was supposedly meant to fire the top prosecutor to protect his son Hunter from being investigated in the Ukrainian investigation of Hunter's previous employer, the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. This led to Donald Trump's first impeachment.
