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 formerly an actor and a 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, the Revolution of Dignity took place over five days beginning on February 18, 2014. It was a deadly clash between people protesting corruption in government and the riot police. During the revolution, Russia invaded Ukrainian territory in the Crimean Peninsula and the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych from office. A month later, on March 18, 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea when Russian president Vladimir Putin signed the treaty of accession with Crimean leaders in Moscow, the capital of Russia.
During 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.
On February 24, 2022, Russia escalated the conflict into a full invasion of Ukraine.
