Volodymyr Zelenskyy facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Володимир Зеленський
Zelenskyy in 2024
6th President of Ukraine
Incumbent
Assumed office 20 May 2019
Prime Minister	Volodymyr Groysman Oleksiy Honcharuk Denys Shmyhal
Preceded by	Petro Poroshenko
Personal details
Born	(1978-01-25) 25 January 1978 (age 46) Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Political party	Independent
Other political affiliations	Servant of the People (2018–present)
Spouse	Olena Kiyashko ​ (m. 2003)​
Children	2
Parents	Oleksandr Zelenskyy (father) Rymma Zelenska (mother)
Residence	Mariinskyi Palace
Alma mater	Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics (LLB)
Occupation	Politician actor comedian
Signature

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978), also transliterated as Zelensky or Zelenskiy, is the current president of Ukraine. He is a former comedian and actor.

Early life

Zelenskyy in Prague in 2009

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. His father, Oleksandr Zelenskyy, is a professor and computer scientist and the head of the Department of Cybernetics and Computing Hardware at the Kryvyi Rih State University of Economics and Technology; his mother, Rymma Zelenska, used to work as an engineer. His grandfather, Semyon (Simon) Ivanovych Zelenskyy, served as an infantryman, reaching the rank of colonel in the Red Army (in the 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division) during World War II; Semyon's father and three brothers were killed in the Holocaust. In March 2022, Zelenskyy revealed that his great-grandparents had been killed after German troops burned their home to the ground during a massacre.

Prior to starting elementary school, Zelenskyy lived for four years in the Mongolian city of Erdenet, where his father worked. Zelenskyy grew up speaking Russian. At the age of 16, he passed the Test of English as a Foreign Language and received an education grant to study in Israel, but his father did not allow him to go. He later earned a law degree from the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics, then a department of Kyiv National Economic University and now part of Kryvyi Rih National University.

Entertainment career

Kvartal 95 performing in 2018

Zelenskyy pursued a career in comedy and created the production company Kvartal 95, which produced films, cartoons, and TV shows.

In 2008, Zelenskyy starred in the feature film Love in the Big City, and its sequel, Love in the Big City 2. He continued his movie career with the film Office Romance. Our Time in 2011 and with Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon in 2012. Love in the Big City 3 was released in January 2014. Zelenskyy also played the leading role in the 2012 film 8 First Dates and in sequels which were produced in 2015 and 2016. He recorded the voice of Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian dubbing of Paddington (2014) and Paddington 2 (2017). Zelenskyy was a member of the board and the general producer of the TV channel Inter from 2010 to 2012.

Zelenskyy starred in the Servant of the People, playing the role of the Ukrainian president. The series aired from 2015 to 2019 and was immensely popular.

Presidency

Official presidential portrait, 2019

Zelenskyy with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Federal Chancellery Complex in Berlin, June 2019

Zelenskyy meets with U.S. president Donald Trump in New York City on 25 September 2019

Zelenskyy and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko in Zhytomyr, October 2019

Zelenskyy leaving 10 Downing Street after a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in October 2020

Zelenskyy and Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev on 17 December 2019

Zelenskyy was inaugurated on 20 May 2019. He is the first Jewish president; with Volodymyr Groysman as prime minister, Ukraine became the first country other than Israel to simultaneously have a Jewish head of state and head of government.

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 heavily uses social media, particularly Instagram. During 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 progress in tackling corruption in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy's administration faced an escalation of tensions with Russia in 2021. On 24 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" to support the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, whose paramilitary forces had been fighting Ukraine in the Donbas conflict since 2014. Following a series of air strikes, Russian troops advanced towards Kyiv and Kharkiv. Zelenskyy declared martial law across Ukraine and a general mobilisation of the armed forces. His leadership during the crisis has won him widespread international praise, and he has been described as a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance. Social polls have ranked Zelenskyy Ukraine's greatest president.

Foreign relations

Zelenskyy's first official trip abroad as president was to Brussels in June 2019, where he met with European Union and NATO officials.

In September 2019, it was reported that U.S. president Donald Trump had allegedly blocked payment of a congressionally mandated $400-million military aid package to Ukraine to pressure Zelenskyy during a July phone call between the two presidents to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who took a board seat on Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings. This report was the catalyst for the Trump–Ukraine scandal and the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. Zelenskyy has denied that he was pressured by Trump and declared that "he does not want to interfere in a foreign election."

On a trip to the United States in September 2021, Zelenskyy engaged in talks and commitments with U.S. president Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. President Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska also took part in the opening of the Ukrainian House in Washington, D.C. On the same trip, he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and with Ukrainians in senior positions at Silicon Valley tech companies, and spoke at Stanford University.

Personal life

Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Olena Zelenska in 2019 parliamentary election

In September 2003, Zelenskyy married Olena Kiyashko, with whom he had attended school and university. Kiyashko worked as a scriptwriter at Kvartal 95. The couple's first daughter, Oleksandra, was born in July 2004. Their son, Kyrylo, was born in January 2013. In Zelenskyy's 2014 movie 8 New Dates, their daughter played Sasha, the daughter of the protagonist. In 2016, she participated in the show The Comedy Comet Company Comedy's Kids and won ₴50,000. The family lives in Kyiv.

Zelenskyy's first language is Russian, and he is also fluent in Ukrainian and English. His assets were worth about ₴37 million (about US$1.5 million) in 2018.

Achievements, awards and recognition

Awards and decorations

On 27 March 2022, Slovakia awarded Zelenskyy one of the country's top awards, the State Award of Alexander Dubček. Zelenskyy has been called by The Times of Israel the "Jewish defender of Ukrainian democracy". Gal Beckerman of The Atlantic described Zelenskyy as having "[given] the world a Jewish Hero".

•  Ukraine: Honorary Diploma of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (2003)
•  Czech Republic: Order of the White Lion, First Class (2022)
•  Latvia: Commander of Grand Cross of the Order of Viesturs (2022)
•  Lithuania: Order of Vytautas the Great with the Golden Chain (2022)
•  Poland: Jan Karski Eagle Award (2022)
•  Slovakia: State Award of Alexander Dubcek (2022)
•  United Kingdom: Sir Winston Churchill Leadership Award (2022)
•  United States:
  • Ronald Reagan Freedom Award (2022)
  • John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award (2022)
  • Philadelphia Liberty Medal (2022)

Species named after Zelenskyy

Ausichicrinites zelenskyyi, an extinct species of feather star described on July 20, 2022 by a group of Polish paleontologists, is named after Zelenskyy "for his courage and bravery in defending free Ukraine".

Selected filmography

Films

Television shows and appearances

Images for kids

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  Zelenskyy and Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev, 17 December 2019

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  Zelenskyy with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 24 January 2020

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  Zelenskyy and U.S. president Joe Biden, 1 September 2021

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  Zelenskyy and Russian President Putin met in Paris on 9 December 2019 in the "Normandy Format" aimed at ending the War in Donbas.

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  Zelenskyy, Ukraine's defense minister Andriy Taran and U.S. secretary of defense Lloyd Austin on 31 August 2021

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  Zelenskyy and U.S. president Joe Biden on 1 September 2021

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  Zelenskyy and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pay tribute to fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv on 17 June 2022

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  The film premiere of I, You, He, She

See also

In Spanish: Volodímir Zelenski para niños