Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Володимир Зеленський
Zelenskyy in 2022

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 47) Krivoy Rog, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Political party	Independent^[1]
Other political affiliations	Servant of the People (2018–present)
Spouse	Olena Kyiashko (m. 2003)
Children	2
Parents	Oleksandr Zelenskyy (father) Rymma Zelenska (mother)
Residence	Mariinskyi Palace
Education	Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics (LLB)
Signature
Website	president.gov.ua/en
Volodymyr Zelenskyy's voice Zelenskyy delivering a joint address to the United States Congress during his 2022 visit to the United States Recorded 21 December 2022

Personal

Entertainment career

6th President of Ukraine

Presidency
Governments
- Groysman
- Honcharuk
- Shmyhal

Tenure

Elections

2019
- presidential
- parliamentary

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy^[a]^[b]^[c] (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019, most notably during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been ongoing since February 2022.

Zelenskyy grew up as a native Russian speaker in Kryvyi Rih, a major city of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine. He obtained a degree in law from the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics, but never practised law and pursued a career in comedy and entertainment. He created the production company Kvartal 95, which produced films, cartoons, and TV shows including the TV series Servant of the People, in which Zelenskyy played a fictional Ukrainian president. The series aired from 2015 to 2019 and was immensely popular. A political party with the same name as the TV show was created in March 2018 by employees of Kvartal 95.

Zelenskyy announced his candidacy in the 2019 presidential election on the evening of 31 December 2018, alongside the New Year's Eve address of then-president Petro Poroshenko on the TV channel 1+1. A political outsider, Zelenskyy positioned himself as an anti-establishment and anti-corruption figure, and had already become one of the frontrunners in opinion polls for the election months before he formally declared his candidacy. He won the election with 73.23 percent of the vote in the second round, defeating Poroshenko in the biggest landslide in the history of Ukrainian presidential elections.^[4]

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.^[5]^: 11–13 He makes extensive use of social media, particularly Instagram.^[5]^: 7–10 His party won a landslide victory in the snap legislative election held shortly after his inauguration as president. During the first two years of his administration, Zelenskyy oversaw the lifting of legal immunity for members of parliament (the Verkhovna Rada),^[6] the country's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recession, and some limited progress in tackling corruption in Ukraine.^[7]^[8]^[9] A poll in May 2021 by the Rating Group gave Zelenskyy the highest trust rating out of all Ukrainian presidents, and ranked him as the second-best president after Leonid Kuchma.^[10]^[11]

During his presidential campaign, Zelenskyy promised to end Ukraine's protracted conflict with Russia, and he has attempted to engage in dialogue with Russian president Vladimir Putin.^[12] His administration faced an escalation of tensions with Russia in 2021, culminating in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Zelenskyy's strategy during the Russian military buildup was to calm the Ukrainian populace and assure the international community that Ukraine was not seeking to retaliate.^[13] He initially distanced himself from warnings of an imminent war, while also calling for security guarantees and military support from NATO to "withstand" the threat.^[14]

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy remained in Kyiv, declining international offers to evacuate him from the capital under attack; he declared martial law across Ukraine and a general mobilisation of the armed forces.^[15]^[16] Zelenskyy was named the Time Person of the Year for 2022.^[17]^[4]^[18]^[19] He has frequently visited frontline and newly liberated areas.^[20]^[21]^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]

Zelenskyy's term was originally scheduled to end in May 2024, but the ongoing Russian invasion and the resulting ongoing martial law prevented the regularly scheduled presidential election from being conducted. He is expected to remain president for the duration of the Russo-Ukrainian War.^[26] Due to this extension of his term, Zelenskyy is the second-longest serving president in Ukrainian history, after only Kuchma.

Early life

[edit]

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy was born to Jewish parents on 25 January 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, then in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.^[27]^[28]^[29] 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, is a retired engineer.^[30]^[31]^[32] His grandfather, Semyon Zelenskyy [uk], served as an infantryman, reaching the rank of colonel in the Red Army (in the 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division) during World War II;^[33]^[34] Semyon's father and three brothers were killed in the Holocaust.^[35]^[36]^[37]^[38]^[39] In March 2022, Zelenskyy said that his great-grandparents had been killed after German troops burned their home to the ground during a massacre.^[40] His grandmother survived World War II after leaving Kryvyi Rih in an evacuation of Jews to Almaty, Kazakhstan, and returned to Ukraine after the war.^[41]

Before starting elementary school, Zelenskyy lived for four years in the Mongolian city of Erdenet, where his father worked^[27] as a mining engineer from the mid-1970s to help build a copper mine, applying his abilities in computer science to mining.^[42] Zelenskyy grew up speaking Russian.^[43]^[33] At the age of 16 he took 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.^[44] 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, but never worked in the legal field.^[27]^[45]

Entertainment career

[edit]

At age 17, he joined his local team competing in the KVN comedy competition.^[46] He was soon invited to join the united Ukrainian team "Zaporizhzhia-Kryvyi Rih-Transit," which performed in the KVN's Major League and eventually won in 1997.^[27]^[47]^[48] That same year, he created and headed the Kvartal 95 team, which later transformed into the comedy outfit Kvartal 95. From 1998 to 2003, Kvartal 95 performed in the Major League and the highest open Ukrainian league of KVN, and the team members spent a lot of time in Moscow and constantly toured around post-Soviet countries.^[27]^[47] In 2003, Kvartal 95 started producing TV shows for the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1, and in 2005, the team moved to fellow Ukrainian TV channel Inter.^[27]

In 2008, he starred in the feature film Love in the Big City, and its sequel, Love in the Big City 2.^[27] Zelenskyy continued his movie career with the film Office Romance. Our Time in 2011 and with Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon in 2012.^[27] Love in the Big City 3 was released in January 2014.^[27] Zelenskyy also played the leading role in the 2012 film 8 First Dates and in sequels that were produced in 2015 and 2016.^[27] He recorded the voice of Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian dubbing of Paddington (2014) and Paddington 2 (2017).^[49]

Zelenskyy was a member of the board and the general producer of the TV channel Inter from 2010 to 2012.^[45] Later in 2018, Zelenskyy said that then-President Yanukovych had offered him US$100 million for political control of Kvartal 95's programmes after he became general producer of Inter, but Zelenskyy refused.^[50]^[51]^[52]

In August 2014, Zelenskyy spoke out against the intention of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture to ban Russian artists from Ukraine.^[53] Since 2015, Ukraine has banned some Russian artists and Russian media and art from entering Ukraine.^[54] In 2018, the romantic comedy Love in the Big City 2 starring Zelenskyy was banned in Ukraine due to the film not following the Law of Ukraine on cinematography.^[55] After the Ukrainian media reported that during the Russo-Ukrainian War Zelenskyy's Kvartal 95 had donated ₴1 million to the Ukrainian army, some Russian politicians and artists petitioned for a ban on his works in Russia.^[56]^[57]

In 2015, Zelenskyy became the star of the television series Servant of the People, where he played the role of the president of Ukraine.^[45] In the series, Zelenskyy's character was a high-school history teacher in his 30s who won the presidential election after a viral video showed him ranting against the government corruption in Ukraine. The comedy series Svaty ("In-laws"), in which Zelenskyy appeared, was banned in Ukraine in 2017,^[58] but unbanned in March 2019.^[59]

Zelenskyy worked mostly in Russian-language productions. His first role in the Ukrainian language was the romantic comedy I, You, He, She,^[60] which appeared on the screens of Ukraine in December 2018.^[61] The first version of the script was written in Ukrainian but was translated into Russian for the Lithuanian actress Agnė Grudytė. Later, the movie was dubbed into Ukrainian.^[62]

In October 2021, the Pandora Papers revealed that Zelenskyy, his chief aide, and the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov operated a network of offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, and Belize. These companies included some that owned expensive London property.^[63] Around the time of his 2019 election, Zelenskyy handed his shares in a key offshore company over to Serhiy Shefir, but the two men appear to have arranged for Zelenskyy's family to continue receiving the money from these companies.^[63] Zelenskyy's election campaign had centred on pledges to clean up the government of Ukraine.^[63]

2019 presidential campaign

[edit]

In March 2018, members of Zelenskyy's production company Kvartal 95 registered a new political party called Servant of the People – the same name as the television program that Zelenskyy had starred in over the previous three years.^[64]^[65] Although Zelenskyy denied any immediate plans to enter politics and said he had registered the party name only to prevent it being appropriated by others,^[66] there was widespread speculation that he was planning to run. As early as October 2018, three months before his campaign announcement and six months before the presidential election, he was already a frontrunner in opinion polls.^[67]^[65] After months of ambiguous statements,^[66]^[65] on 31 December, less than four months from the election, Zelenskyy announced his candidacy for president of Ukraine on the New Year's Eve evening show on the TV channel 1+1.^[68] His announcement up-staged the New Year's Eve address of incumbent president Petro Poroshenko on the same channel,^[68] which Zelenskyy said was unintentional and attributed to a technical glitch.^[69]

Zelenskyy's presidential campaign against Poroshenko was almost entirely virtual.^[70]^[71] He did not release a detailed policy platform^[72] and his engagement with mainstream media was minimal;^[70]^[d] he instead reached out to the electorate via social media channels and YouTube clips.^[70] In place of traditional campaign rallies, he conducted stand-up comedy routines across Ukraine with his production company Kvartal 95.^[74]^[75] On 16 April 2019, a few days before the election, 20 Ukrainian news outlets called on Zelenskyy to "stop avoiding journalists".^[70] Zelenskyy stated that he was not hiding from journalists but that he did not want to go to talk shows where "people of the old power" were "just doing PR" and that he did not have time to satisfy all interview requests.^[76]

Zelenskyy styled himself as an anti-establishment, anti-corruption figure, and said he wished to restore trust in politicians, "to bring professional, decent people to power" and to "change the mood and timbre of the political establishment".^[64]^[65]^[77] Atlantic Council member Anders Aslund said Zelenskyy was not a populist;^[72] however, other scholars have analysed Zelenskyy's politics in the framework of populism. For instance, political scientist Volodymyr Kulyk described Zelenskyy as practising "inclusionary" populism that claims to defend "the people" against "the elite" while defining "the people" in a way inclusive of all ethnic, linguistic, religious, and other groups.^[78] Scholar Kostiantyn Yanchenko described Zelenskyy's campaign as characterised by "populist hyperreality" constructed by the Servant of the People series and Zelenskyy's other comedy shows,^[79] and argued along with fellow scholar Mattia Zulianello that Zelenskyy and his party were examples of "valence populism" focused on "non-positional topics, such as anti-corruption appeals, political transparency and moral integrity", rather than "economic and socio-cultural issues".^[80]

Before the elections, Zelenskyy presented a team that included former finance minister Oleksandr Danylyuk and others.^[81]^[73] During the campaign, concerns were raised over his links to the oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi,^[82] a billionaire businessman who had gained control of the 1+1 Media Group in 2010. The group operates eight Ukrainian TV channels and broadcast the Servant of the People TV series from 2015 until 2019, featuring Zelenskyy playing the President of Ukraine.

Poroshenko and his supporters claimed that Zelenskyy's victory would benefit Russia.^[83]^[84]^[85]^[86] On 19 April 2019 at Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex presidential debates were held in the form of a show.^[87]^[88]^[89] In his introductory speech, Zelenskyy acknowledged that in 2014 he voted for Poroshenko, but "I was mistaken. We were mistaken. We voted for one Poroshenko, but received another. The first appears when there are video cameras, the other Petro sends Medvedchuk privietiki (greetings) to Moscow."^[87] Although Zelenskyy initially said he would serve only a single term, he walked back this promise in May 2021, saying he had not yet made up his mind.^[90]

Zelenskyy stated that as president he would develop the economy and attract investment to Ukraine through "a restart of the judicial system" and restoring confidence in the state.^[91] He also proposed a tax amnesty and a 5-per-cent flat tax for big business which could be increased "in dialogue with them and if everyone agrees".^[91] According to Zelenskyy, if people would notice that his new government "works honestly from the first day", they would start paying their taxes.^[91]

Zelenskyy achieved a plurality of the electorate (30%) in the first round of elections on 31 March 2019.^[92] In the second round, on 21 April 2019, he received 73 percent of the vote to Poroshenko's 25 percent and was elected President of Ukraine.^[93]^[94] Polish president Andrzej Duda was one of the first European leaders to congratulate Zelenskyy.^[95] French president Emmanuel Macron received Zelenskyy at the Élysée Palace in Paris on 12 April 2019.^[96] On 22 April, U.S. president Donald Trump congratulated Zelenskyy on his victory over the telephone.^[97]^[98] European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk also issued a joint letter of congratulations and stated that the European Union (EU) will work to speed up the implementation of the remainder of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area.^[99]

Presidency

[edit]


Presidency of Volodymyr Zelenskyy 20 May 2019 – present
President	Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Prime Minister	Volodymyr Hroysman Oleksiy Honcharuk Denys Shmyhal
Cabinet	Honcharuk Government Shmyhal Government
Party	Servant of the People
Election	2019
Seat	Presidential Office Building Bankova 11, Kyiv
← Petro Poroshenko

Presidential styles of Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Official portrait of Zelenskyy, 2019
Reference style	Його Високоповажність, Президент України. "His Excellency, the President of Ukraine"
Spoken style	Президент України. "President of Ukraine"
Alternative style	Пане Президенте. "Mr President"

Zelenskyy was inaugurated on 20 May 2019.^[100] Various foreign officials attended the ceremony in Ukraine's parliament (Verkhovna Rada), including Salome Zourabichvili (Georgia), Kersti Kaljulaid (Estonia), Raimonds Vējonis (Latvia), Dalia Grybauskaitė (Lithuania), János Áder (Hungary), Maroš Šefčovič (EU), and Rick Perry (United States).^[101] Zelenskyy is the first Jewish president of Ukraine; 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.^[29]

In his inaugural address, Zelenskyy dissolved the then Ukrainian parliament and called for early parliamentary elections (which had originally been scheduled for October of that year).^[102] One of the parliamentary coalition members, the People's Front, opposed the move and withdrew from the ruling coalition.^[103]

On 28 May, Zelenskyy restored the Ukrainian citizenship of Mikheil Saakashvili.^[104]

Zelenskyy's first major proposal to change the electoral system from a plurality voting system to proportional representation with closed party lists was strongly rejected by the Ukrainian parliament, who believed that closed lists would lead to more corruption in government.^[105] Zelenskyy had earlier called for the introduction of open list election ballots, such as during his inauguration speech,^[106] but his proposal would have held the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election with closed lists based on the reasoning that the 60-day term to the snap election did not "leave any chances for the introduction of this system."^[107]

In addition, on 6 June, lawmakers refused to include Zelenskyy's key initiative on reintroducing criminal liability for illegal enrichment in the parliament's agenda, and instead included a similar bill proposed by a group of deputies.^[108]^[109] In June 2019 it was announced that the president's third major initiative, which seeks to remove immunity from lawmakers, diplomats and judges, would be submitted after the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election.^[110] This initiative was completed on 3 September, when the new parliament passed a bill stripping lawmakers of legal immunity, delivering Zelenskyy a legislative victory by fulfilling one of his key campaign promises.^[111]

On 8 July, Zelenskyy ordered the cancellation of the annual Kyiv Independence Day Parade on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, citing costs. Despite this, Zelenskyy highlighted that the day would "honor heroes" on Independence Day, however, the "format will be new."^[112]^[113] He also proposed to spend the money that would have been used to finance the parade on veterans.^[114]

In 2020, Zelenskyy's party proposed reforms to Ukraine's media laws with the intent to increase competition and loosen the dominance of Ukrainian oligarchs on television and radio broadcasters. Critics said it risked increasing media censorship in Ukraine^[115] because its clause of criminal responsibility for the distribution of disinformation could be abused.^[116]

In January 2020, Zelenskyy took a trip to Oman that was not published on his official schedule, appearing to combine a personal holiday with government business. His office said Zelenskyy paid for the entire trip himself. Nevertheless, he was criticized for a lack of transparency and critics pointed out he had once criticized his predecessor Poroshenko for taking an undisclosed vacation in the Maldives.^[117]^[118]

In January 2021, parliament passed a bill updating and reforming Ukraine's referendum laws,^[119] which Ukraine's Constitutional Court had declared unconstitutional in 2018.^[120] Fixing the referendum law had been one of Zelenskyy's campaign promises.^[119]

In June 2021, Zelenskyy submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a bill creating a public registry of Ukraine's oligarchs, banning them from participating in privatizations of state-owned companies and forbidding them from contributing financially to politicians. Opposition party leaders supported Zelenskyy's goal of reducing oligarchs' influence on politics in Ukraine but were critical of his approach, saying the public register would be both dangerous, as it concentrated power in the president; and ineffective, since oligarchs were merely a "symbol" of more deeply-rooted corruption.^[121] The bill was passed into law in September 2021.^[122] Critics of Zelenskyy's administration have claimed that, in taking power away from the Ukrainian oligarchs, he has sought to centralize authority and strengthen his position.^[123]

Cabinets and administration

[edit]

Zelenskyy appointed Andriy Bohdan as head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine. Before this, Bohdan had been the lawyer of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi.^[124] Under the rules of Lustration in Ukraine, introduced in 2014 following Euromaidan, Bohdan is not entitled to hold any state office until 2024 (because of his government post during the Second Azarov Government).^[125] Bohdan, however, contended that because heading the presidential administration is not considered civil service work, lustration did not apply to him.^[126] A number of the members of the Presidential Administration Zelenskyy appointed were former colleagues from his former production company, Kvartal 95,^[124] including Ivan Bakanov, who became deputy head of the Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU).^[127] Former deputy foreign minister Olena Zerkal declined an appointment as deputy head of the presidential administration, but did agree to serve as the Ukrainian representative of the international courts concerning Russia.^[128] Zelenskyy's requests to replace the foreign minister, defence minister, chief prosecutor and head of Ukraine's security service were rejected by parliament.^[129]^[130] Zelenskyy also dismissed and replaced 20 of the governors of Ukraine's 24 oblasts.^[131]

Honcharuk government

[edit]

In the 21 July 2019 parliamentary election, Zelenskyy's political party, Servant of the People, won the first single-party majority in modern Ukrainian history in parliament, with 43 percent of the party-list vote. His party gained 254 of the 424 seats.^[132]

Following the elections, Zelenskyy nominated Oleksiy Honcharuk as prime minister, who was quickly confirmed by parliament. Parliament also confirmed Andrii Zahorodniuk as defence minister, Vadym Prystaiko as foreign minister and Bakanov as head of the SBU.^[133] Arsen Avakov, a controversial figure dogged by longstanding corruption allegations,^[134] was kept on as interior minister, with Honcharuk arguing that the relatively inexperienced government needed experienced administrators and that Avakov had been "'drawn red lines' that cannot be crossed."^[135]

Zelenskyy dismissed Bohdan as head of his presidential administration on 11 February 2020 and appointed Andriy Yermak as his successor the same day.^[136]

Shmyhal government

[edit]

In March 2020, Honchurak resigned as prime minister following the leak of an audio recording in which he appeared to belittle Zelenskyy's economic management. Honchurak was replaced as prime minister Denys Shmyhal.^[137] Honchurak's hasty departure caused disquiet both in Ukraine and abroad, with many economists and political observers warning it would bring instability.^[138] In his 4 March address to the Rada,^[139] Zelenskyy recommitted to reforms domestic and financial, and remarked that he "cannot always become a psychologist for people, a crisis manager for someone, a collector who requires honestly earned money, and a nanny of the ministry in charge."^{[citation needed]} By September 2020, Zelenskyy's approval ratings had fallen to less than 32 percent.^[140]

On 24 March 2021, Zelenskyy signed Decree 117/2021 approving the "strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol."^[141]

By October 2021, Zelenskyy's approval rating had fallen further to 24.7%, but was still above or on par with most of his predecessors' at the same point in their presidencies.^[4]

Attempts to end the Donbas conflict

[edit]

One of Zelenskyy's central campaign promises had been to end the Russo-Ukrainian War and resolve the Russia-sponsored separatist movement there.^[142] On 3 June, Zelenskyy appointed former president Leonid Kuchma as Ukraine's representative in the Tripartite Contact Group for a settlement in the conflict.^[143] On 11 July 2019, Zelenskyy held his first telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin, during which he urged Putin to enter into talks mediated by EU.^[144]^[145] The two leaders also discussed the exchange of prisoners held by both sides.^[145] In October 2019, Zelenskyy announced a preliminary deal struck with the separatists, under which the Ukrainian government would respect elections held in the region in exchange for Russia withdrawing its unmarked troops.^[142] The deal was met with heavy criticism and protests by both politicians and the Ukrainian public. Detractors noted that elections held in Donbas were unlikely to be free and fair, that the separatists had long driven most pro-Ukrainian residents out of the region to ensure a pro-Russia majority, and that it would be impossible to ensure Russia kept its end of the agreement.^[142] Zelenskyy defended his negotiations, saying the elections would not be held before a Russian withdrawal.^[146] The agreement failed to ease the conflict, as the separatists continued their attacks and Russia continued providing them with weapons and ammunition.^[147] Several Ukrainian nationalist militias and former militias also refused to accept the agreement, including the far-right Azov fighters in the Luhansk region of Donbas. Zelenskyy met personally with some of these groups and tried to convince them to surrender their unregistered weapons and accept the peace accord. Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the far-right National Corps and first commander of Azov, accused Zelenskyy of being disrespectful to army veterans and of acting on behalf of the Kremlin by leaving Ukrainians vulnerable to Russian aggression.^[148]^[149] Ultimately, the peace deal failed to reduce the violence, much less end the war.^[147]

In December 2019, Russia and Ukraine agreed to resume talks mediated by France and Germany under the so-called Normandy Format, which had been abandoned in 2016; it was Zelenskyy's first face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin.^[150] In July 2020, Zelenskyy announced a formal ceasefire with the separatists — the more than twentieth such attempt since the war began in 2014.^[151] Although the ceasefire was frequently violated over the next few years and overall violence remained high, ceasefire violations in 2020 did decrease by over 50 percent compared to the previous year.^[152]

UIA Flight 752

[edit]

On 8 January 2020, the Presidential Office announced that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was cutting short his trip to Oman owing to the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 plane crash in nearby Iran the same day.^[153] Also on the same day, internet news site Obozrevatel.com released information that on 7 January 2020, Ukrainian politician of the Opposition Platform — For Life Medvedchuk – who has exclusive relations with the current president of Russia – may have arrived in Oman.^[154]^[155] Soon, rumors began that Zelenskyy may have had some additional meetings beside the ones that were announced.^[156] On 14 January 2020, Yermak dismissed the rumors as speculations and baseless conspiracy theories,^[157] while Medvedchuk stated that the plane was used by his older daughter's family to fly from Oman to Moscow.^[158] Later, Yermak contacted the on-line newspaper Ukrainian Truth and gave more details about the visit to Oman and the plane crash in Iran.^[159]

On 17 January 2020, the presidential appointee Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prystaiko, was unable to give answers during the "times of questions to the government" in parliament when the people's deputies of Ukraine asked him about the visit's official agenda, the invitation from Oman, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who were preparing the visit, as well as how the president actually crossed the border while visiting Oman.^[160]^[161] On 20 January 2020, Prystaiko followed up by giving a briefing to the press in the Office of the president of Ukraine and saying that he would explain everything about the visit when the time came.^[162]

Foreign relations

[edit]

Zelenskyy's first official trip abroad as president was to Brussels in June 2019, where he met with EU and NATO officials.^[163]

In August 2019, Zelenskyy promised to lift the moratorium on exhuming Polish mass graves in Ukraine after the previous Ukrainian government banned the Polish side from carrying out any exhumations of Polish victims of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army-perpetrated Volhynian massacres, following the removal of a memorial to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Hruszowice, southeastern Poland.^[164]

In September 2019, it was reported that U.S. president 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,^[86]^[165] who took a board seat on Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.^[166] 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."^[167]

On a trip to the United States in September 2021, Zelenskyy engaged in talks and commitments with U.S. president Joe Biden,^[168] Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm,^[169] and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.^[170] President Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska also took part in the opening of the Ukrainian House in Washington, D.C.^[169] On the same trip, he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook^[171] and with Ukrainians in senior positions at Silicon Valley tech companies,^[172] and spoke at Stanford University.^[173] While Zelenskyy was still in the U.S., just after delivering a speech at the United Nations, an assassination attempt was made in Ukraine on Shefir, his closest aide. Shefir was unhurt in the attack, although his driver was hospitalized with three bullet wounds.^[174]

Russo-Ukrainian crisis (2021–2022)

[edit]

In April 2021, in response to Russian military build-up at the Ukrainian borders, Zelenskyy spoke to American president Joe Biden and urged NATO members to speed up Ukraine's request for membership.^[175]

On 26 November 2021, Zelenskyy accused Russia and Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov of backing a plan to overthrow his government.^[176] Russia denied any involvement in a coup plot and Akhmetov said in a statement that "the information made public by Volodymyr Zelenskiy about attempts to draw me into some kind of coup is an absolute lie. I am outraged by the spread of this lie, no matter what the president's motives are."^[177]^[178] In December 2021, Zelenskyy called for preemptive action against Russia.^[179] On 19 January 2022, Zelenskyy said in a video message that the country's citizens should not panic and appealed to the media to be "methods of mass information and not mass hysteria."^[180]^[181] On 28 January, Zelenskyy called on the West not to create a "panic" in his country over a potential Russian invasion, adding that constant warnings of an "imminent" threat of invasion are putting the economy of Ukraine at risk.^[182] Zelenskyy said that "we do not see a bigger escalation" than in early 2021 when Russia's military build-up started.^[183] Zelenskyy and U.S. president Joe Biden disagreed on how imminent the threat was.^[184]^[185]

On 19 February, as worries of a Russian invasion of Ukraine grew, Zelenskyy warned the Munich Security Conference that Western nations should abandon their "appeasement" attitude toward Moscow. "Ukraine has been granted security assurances in exchange for giving up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. We don't have any firearms. And there's no security... But we have a right to urge a transformation from an appeasement policy to one that ensures security and peace," he stated.^[186]

In the early hours of 24 February, shortly before the start of the Russian invasion, Zelenskyy recorded an address to the citizens of both Ukraine and Russia. He disputed claims of the Russian government about the presence of neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian government and stated that he had no intention of attacking the Donbas region while highlighting his connections to the area.^[187] In part of the address, he spoke in Russian to the people of Russia, appealing to them to pressure their leadership to prevent war:

Who will suffer the most from this? People. Who does not want this more than anyone? People. Who can prevent this? People.
Are these people present among you? I am sure there are. Public figures, journalists, musicians, actors, athletes, scientists, doctors, bloggers, stand-up comedians, Tik-Tokers and many more. Regular people. Regular, normal people. Men, women, the elderly, children, fathers, and most importantly, mothers. Just like people in Ukraine. Just like the authorities in Ukraine, no matter how much they try to convince you otherwise.
I know that they will not show this appeal of mine on Russian television. But the citizens of Russia must see it. They must know the truth. And the truth is that this needs to stop before it is too late. And if the Russian leadership does not want to sit down at the table with us for the sake of peace, then perhaps, they will sit down at the table with you.

Do Russians want war? I would very much like to answer this question. But the answer depends only on you, the citizens of the Russian Federation.

The speech was widely described as "emotional" and "astonishing."^[188]^[189]

Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present)

[edit]

Phase 1: invasion of Ukraine 2022, 24 February – 7 April

[edit]

On the morning of 24 February, Putin announced that Russia was initiating a "special military operation" in the Donbas. Russian missiles struck a number of military targets in Ukraine, and Zelenskyy declared martial law.^[190] Zelenskyy also announced that diplomatic relations with Russia were being severed, effective immediately.^[191] Later in the day, he announced general mobilisation.^[192] On 25 February, Zelenskyy said that despite Russia's claim that it was targeting only military sites, civilian sites were also being hit.^[193] In an early morning address that day, Zelenskyy said that his intelligence services had identified him as Russia's top target, but that he is staying in Kyiv and his family will remain in the country. "They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state," he said.^[194] In the early hours of 26 February, during the most significant assault by Russian troops on the capital of Kyiv, the United States government and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged Zelenskyy to evacuate to a safer location, and both offered assistance for such an effort. Zelenskyy turned down both offers and opted to remain in Kyiv with its defense forces, saying that "the fight is here [in Kyiv]; I need ammunition, not a ride."^[195]^[196]^[197]

More than 90% of Ukrainians supported the actions of Zelenskyy,^[198] including more than 90% in western and central Ukraine and more than 80% in Russian-speaking regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.^[199] A Pew Research Center poll found that 72% of Americans had confidence in Zelenskyy's handling of international affairs.^[200]

Zelenskyy has gained worldwide recognition as the wartime leader of Ukraine during the Russian invasion; historian Andrew Roberts compared him to Winston Churchill.^[201]^[202] Harvard Political Review said that Zelenskyy "has harnessed the power of social media to become history's first truly online wartime leader, bypassing traditional gatekeepers as he uses the internet to reach out to the people."^[203] He has been described as a national hero or a "global hero" by many commentators, including publications such as The Hill, Deutsche Welle, Der Spiegel and USA Today.^[201]^[204]^[205]^[206] BBC News and The Guardian have reported that his response to the invasion has received praise even from previous critics.^[197]^[207] During the invasion, Zelenskyy has been reportedly the target of more than a dozen assassination attempts; three were prevented by tips from Russian FSB employees who opposed the invasion. Two of those attempts were carried out by the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary force, and the third by the Kadyrovites, the personal guard of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.^[208] While speaking about Ukrainian civilians who were killed by Russian forces, Zelenskyy said:^[209]

We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war... We will find every scum who was shelling our cities, our people, who was shooting the missiles, who was giving orders. You will not have a quiet place on this earth – except for a grave.

On 7 March 2022, Czech president Miloš Zeman decided to award Zelenskyy with the highest state award of the Czech Republic, the Order of the White Lion, for "his bravery and courage in the face of Russia's invasion."^[210]

Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for direct talks with Putin,^[211] saying: "Good Lord, what do you want? Leave our land. If you don't want to leave now, sit down with me at the negotiating table. But not from 30 meters away, like with Macron and Scholz. I don't bite."^[212] Zelenskyy said he was "99.9 percent sure" that Putin thought the Ukrainians would welcome the invading forces with "flowers and smiles."^[213]

On 7 March 2022, as a condition for ending the invasion, the Kremlin demanded Ukraine's neutrality; recognition of Crimea, which had been annexed by Russia, as Russian territory; and recognition of the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.^[214] On 8 March, Zelenskyy expressed willingness to discuss Putin's demands.^[211] Zelenskyy said he is ready for dialogue, but "not for capitulation."^[215] He proposed a new collective security agreement for Ukraine with the United States, Turkey, France, Germany as an alternative to the country joining NATO.^[216] Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party said that Ukraine would not give up its claims on Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk.^[217] However, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine was considering giving the Russian language protected minority status.^[218]

On 15 March 2022, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, together with Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša, visited Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy in a display of support for Ukraine.^[219] On 16 March 2022, a deepfake appeared online of Zelenskyy calling on Ukrainian citizens to surrender to Russia. The attack was largely deemed to have failed at its intended goal.^[220] The video is considered to be the first use of deepfake technology in a global-scale disinformation attack.^[221]

Zelenskyy has made an effort to rally the governments of Western nations to isolate Russia. He has made numerous addresses to the legislatures of the EU,^[222]^[223] UK,^[224] Poland,^[225] Australia,^[226] Canada,^[227] US,^[228] Germany,^[229] Israel,^[230] Italy,^[231] Japan,^[232] the Netherlands,^[233] Romania,^[234] and the Nordic countries.^[235]^[236]^[237]

On 23 March, Zelenskyy was calling on Russians to emigrate from Russia so as not to finance the war in Ukraine with their taxes.^[238] In March 2022, Zelenskyy supported the suspension of 11 Ukrainian political parties with ties to Russia: the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Derzhava, Left Opposition, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Opposition Platform — For Life, Party of Shariy, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Union of Leftists, and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc.^[239]^[240]^[241] The Communist Party of Ukraine, another pro-Russia party, had already been banned in 2015 because of its support to the Donbas separatists.^[242] Zelenskyy has also supported consolidating all TV news stations into a single 24-hour news broadcast run by the state of Ukraine during martial law.^[243]^[244]

Phase 2: South-Eastern front 2022, 8 April – 5 September

[edit]

In April 2022, Zelenskyy criticized Germany's ties with Russia.^[245] In May 2022, Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian men of conscription age had a duty to remain in Ukraine.^[246] As Zelenskyy ordered a general military mobilization in February 2022, he also banned men aged 18 to 60 from leaving Ukraine.^[247]^[248]

Zelenskyy denounced suggestions by former US diplomat Henry Kissinger that Ukraine should cede control of Crimea and Donbas to Russia in exchange for peace.^[249] On 25 May 2022, he said that Ukraine would not agree to peace until Russia agreed to return Crimea and the Donbas region to Ukraine.^[250] However, he later said he did not believe that all the land seized by Russia since 2014, which includes Crimea, could be recaptured by force, saying that "If we decide to go that way, we will lose hundreds of thousands of people."^[251] On 3 May 2022, Zelenskyy accused Turkey of having "double standards" by welcoming Russian tourists while attempting to act as an intermediary between Russia and Ukraine to end the war.^[252] On 25 May 2022, Zelenskyy said that he was satisfied with China's policy of staying away from the conflict.^[253] In August 2022, he said China had the economic leverage to pressure Putin to end the war, adding,

I'm sure that without the Chinese market for the Russian Federation, Russia would be feeling complete economic isolation. That's something that China can do – to limit the trade [with Russia] until the war is over.

According to Zelenskyy, since the beginning of the invasion, Chinese President Xi Jinping had refused to speak with him.^[254]

On 30 May 2022, Zelenskyy criticized EU leaders for being too soft on Russia and asked, "Why can Russia still earn almost a billion euros a day by selling energy?"^[255] The study published by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) calculates that the EU paid Russia about €56 billion for fossil fuel deliveries in the three months following the start of Russia's invasion.^[256]

On 20 June 2022, Zelenskyy addressed African Union (AU) representatives via videoconference. He invited African leaders to a virtual meeting, but only four of them attended.^[257] On 20 July 2022, South America's Mercosur trade bloc refused Zelenskyy's request to speak at the trade bloc's summit in Paraguay.^[258]

Phase 3: counteroffensive and annexations 2022, 6 September – 31 December

[edit]

Speaking about the 2022 Russian mobilization, Zelenskyy called on Russians to not submit to "criminal mobilization," saying: "Russian commanders do not care about the lives of Russians — they just need to replenish the empty spaces left" by killed and wounded Russian soldiers.^[259] Following Putin's announcement of Russia annexing four regions of Ukrainian territory it had seized during its invasion, Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine would not hold peace talks with Russia while Putin was president.^[260]

On 25 September 2022, Zelenskyy said that Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons "could be a reality." He added that Putin "wants to scare the whole world" with nuclear blackmail.^[261] He also said that Putin is aware that the "world will never forgive" a Russian nuclear strike.^[262] When asked what kind of relationship Ukrainians and Ukraine will have with Russia after the war, Zelenskyy replied that "They took too many people, too many lives. The society will not forgive them," adding that "It will be the choice of our society whether to talk to them, or not to talk at all, and for how many years, tens of years or more."^[263] On 21 December 2022, Zelenskyy visited the United States on his first foreign trip since the war began.^[264]^[265] He met with President Joe Biden and addressed Congress delivering his full speech in English. The United States announced they would supply Patriot missiles to Ukraine as had been requested.^[266]

By 31 December the Battle of Soledar had been decided and on 16 January 2023 Russian forces secured control of the town.^[267]

Phase 4: stalemate and shell hunger 2023, 1 January – 31 December

[edit]

In early 2023, Zelenskyy signed a new law declaring that desertion, or "failure to report for duty without a valid reason," would result in up to 12 years in prison.^[268]^[269] Over a year later in late 2024, the Verkhovna Rada passed bills decriminalising soldiers' first instance of desertion or absence without leave if they returned to their duty station,^[270] and allowing these soldiers to return to military service.^[271]

In May 2023, he visited the International Criminal Court in The Hague and said he would like to see Putin stand trial for war crimes committed during the war in Ukraine,^[272] including the crime of aggression.^[273]

By 1 June the Battle of Bakhmut had been decided in Russia's favour.

On 19 September 2023, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, Zelenskyy called on neutral countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia to abandon their neutrality and support Ukraine.^[274] In October 2023, after the Hroza missile attack, he criticized countries supporting Russia, saying "all those who help Russia circumvent sanctions are criminals."^[275]

Phase 5: indecisive allies 2024, January–July

[edit]

On 8 February 2024 Zelenskyy decommissioned General Valery Zaluzhny as Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and promoted General Oleksandr Syrskyi in his stead.^[276] On 17 February Syrskyi declared he would hold Avdiivka no longer.^[277]^[278]^[279]^[280]^[281]

On 25 June 2024 Zelenskyy decommissioned LtGen Yuriy Sodol, who had been promoted in February to Syrskyi's now-vacant position. He installed Brig Gen Andriy Hnatov to replace the defunct Sodol.^[282]

Phase 6: Kursk incursion 2024, August–present

[edit]

This section needs expansion with: Kursk Incursion. You can help by adding to itadding to it or making an edit request. (December 2024)

In April 2024, Zelenskyy signed a new mobilization law to increase the number of troops.^[283]^[284] He also signed into law a measure lowering Ukraine's army mobilization age from 27 to 25.^[285]

In June 2024, Zelenskyy said that China's support for Russia would prolong the war in Ukraine. According to Zelenskyy, Russia used Chinese diplomats to undermine the Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland.^[286]

In July 2024, Zelenskyy criticised Narendra Modi's meeting with Putin on the same day that Russian missile strikes hit the children's hospital Okhmatdyt in Kyiv,^[287] saying "It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day."^[288]^[289]^[290]

On 30 August 2024, Zelenskyy decommissioned Lt Gen Mykola Oleshchuk, who had headed the Ukrainian Air Force since 2021, shortly after the death of F-16 pilot Col Oleksiy Mes during a Russian missile attack. Politician Maryana Bezuhla claimed the pilot's jet had been shot down by the friendly fire of an anti-aircraft missile, and the death is under investigation.^[291] Zelenskyy did not specify a reason for the dismissal, but said "we must...take care of all our warriors."^[292]^[291] Zelenskyy also said: "I have decided to replace the commander of the Air Forces... I am eternally grateful to all our military pilots," the next day after the pilot's death.^[293]

In October 2024, Zelenskyy unveiled the Victory Plan for Ukraine.^[294] The plan included five points: one geopolitical, two military, one economical and one related to national defense and safety.^[295]

In December 2024, Zelenskyy resisted pressure from the Biden administration to lower the conscription age to 18 to replace Ukraine's battlefield losses.^[296] In February 2025, he said that Ukraine would introduce special military contracts for volunteers aged 18 to 24.^[297]

On 4 September 2024, most of the Shmyhal Government cabinet tendered their resignations while Zelenskyy considered his reshuffle.^[298]^[299]

In February 2025, Zelenskyy met with U.S. President Trump at the White House to discuss a proposed agreement which would give the United States the right to extract rare minerals from Ukrainian soil. The meeting soon turned into a heated exchange with Trump and Vice President Vance against Zelenskyy. The planned lunch, discussions, and signing were all cancelled and Zelenskyy was evicted from the White House.^[300]^[301]

Political views

[edit]

Economic issues

[edit]

In a mid-June interview with BIHUS info^[uk], a representative of the president of Ukraine at the Cabinet of Ministers, Andriy Herus stated that Zelenskyy had never promised to lower communal tariffs, but that a campaign video in which Zelenskyy stated that the price of natural gas in Ukraine could fall by 20–30 percent or maybe more was not a direct promise but actually "half-hinting" and "joking".^[302] Zelenskyy's election manifesto mentioned tariffs only once — that money raised from a capital amnesty would go towards "lowering the tariff burden on low-income citizens".^[303]^[304]

Foreign policy

[edit]

During his presidential campaign, Zelenskyy said that he supported Ukraine's becoming a member of the EU and NATO, but he said Ukrainian voters should decide on the country's membership of these two organisations in referendums.^[305] At the same time, he believed that the Ukrainian people had already chosen "eurointegration."^[305]^[306] Zelenskyy's close advisor Bakanov also said that Zelenskyy's policy is supportive of membership of both the EU and NATO, and proposes holding referendums on membership.^[307] Zelenskyy's electoral programme claimed that Ukrainian NATO membership is "the choice of the Maidan and the course that is enshrined in the Constitution, in addition, it is an instrument for strengthening our defense capability."^[308] The program states that Ukraine should set the goal to apply for a NATO Membership Action Plan in 2024.^[308] The programme also states that Zelenskyy "will do everything to ensure" that Ukraine can apply for European Union membership in 2024.^[309] Two days before the second round, Zelenskyy stated that he wanted to build "a strong, powerful, free Ukraine, which is not the younger sister of Russia, which is not a corrupt partner of Europe, but our independent Ukraine."^[310] In October 2020, he spoke in support of Azerbaijan in regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Zelenskyy said,

We support Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty just as Azerbaijan always supports our territorial integrity and sovereignty.^[311]

Zelenskyy has tried to position Ukraine as a neutral party in the political and trade tensions between the United States and China. In January 2021, Zelenskyy said in an interview with Axios that he does not perceive China as a geopolitical threat and that he does not agree with the United States assertions that it represents one.^[312]

In February 2022, he applied for Ukraine to join the EU.^[313]^[314]

Zelenskyy condemned Hamas' 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, and expressed his support of Israel's right to self-defense.^[315] As the Gaza war continued, Zelenskyy also affirmed Ukraine's support for the two-state solution and recognition of the State of Palestine; called for international law to be followed; and expressed Ukraine's readiness to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza and desire to prevent civilian suffering.^[316]^[317]

Zelenskyy condemned the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.^[318]

Russo-Ukrainian War

[edit]

Zelenskyy supported the Euromaidan movement in late 2013 and early 2014. During the war in Donbas, he actively supported the Ukrainian army.^[45] Zelenskyy helped fund a volunteer battalion fighting in Donbas.^[319] In a 2014 interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine, Zelenskyy said that he would have liked to pay a visit to Crimea, but would avoid it because "armed people are there."^[320] In August 2014, Zelenskyy performed for Ukrainian troops in Mariupol and later his studio donated ₴1 million to the Ukrainian army.^[321] Regarding the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, Zelenskyy said that, speaking realistically, it would be possible to return Crimea to Ukrainian control only after a regime change in Russia.^[322]

In an interview in December 2018 with Ukrainska Pravda, Zelenskyy stated that as president he would try to end the ongoing war in Donbas by negotiating with Russia.^[323] As he considered the leaders of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic (DPR and LPR) to be Russia's "puppets," it would "make no sense to speak with them."^[323] He did not rule out holding a referendum on the issue.^[323] In an interview published three days before the 2019 presidential election (on 21 April), Zelenskyy stated that he was against granting the Donbas region "special status."^[324] In the interview he also said that if he were elected president he would not sign a law on amnesty for the militants of the DPR and LPR.^[324]

In response to suggestions to the contrary, he stated in April 2019 that he regarded Putin "as an enemy."^[325] On 2 May 2019, Zelenskyy wrote on Facebook that "the border is the only thing Russia and Ukraine have in common."^[326]

Zelenskyy opposes the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, calling it "a dangerous weapon, not only for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe."^[327]

On 25 May 2022, two months after the full-scale Russian invasion, Zelenskyy said "Ukraine will fight until it regains all its territories."^[328]

Zelenskyy has described the extensive environmental damage from the war as "an environmental bomb of mass destruction" and "an ecocide" (a crime in Ukraine) and has met with prominent European politicians and others to discuss the environmental damage.^[329]^[330]^[331]^[332]^[333]^{[excessive citations]}

Government reform

[edit]

During the 2019 presidential campaign, Zelenskyy promised bills to fight corruption, including removal of immunity from the president, members of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's national parliament) and judges, a law about impeachment, reform of election laws, and providing efficient trial by jury. He promised to bring the salary for military personnel "to the level of NATO standards."^[334]

Although Zelenskyy had earlier stated that he prefers elections with open list election ballots (such as in his inauguration speech^[106]), after he called the snap 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, his draft law "On amendments to some laws of Ukraine in connection with the change of the electoral system for the election of people's deputies" proposed to hold the election with closed lists because the 60-day term to the snap election did not "leave any chances for the introduction of this system."^[107] However, this bill was rejected by parliament.^[105]

Social issues

[edit]

Zelenskyy opposed targeting the Russian language in Ukraine and banning artists for their political opinions (such as those viewed by the Government as anti-Ukrainian).^[335]^[336] In April 2019, he stated that he was not against a Ukrainian language quota (on radio and TV), although he noted they could be tweaked.^[337] He also said that Russian artists "who have turned into (anti-Ukrainian) politicians" should remain banned from entering Ukraine.^[324]

In response to a petition demanding equal rights for same-sex couples, Zelenskyy affirmed that democracies were measured by how they ensure equal rights for all citizens, that "all people are free and equal in their dignity and rights",^[338] and that the family "consists of persons who live together, are connected by common life, have mutual rights and obligations";^[339] he asked the Prime Minister of Ukraine to review civil partnerships for same-sex couples and called this "part of the work on establishing and ensuring human rights and freedoms".^[339] However, he said that same-sex marriage could not be introduced during wartime as this would require amending the Constitution of Ukraine, which defines marriage as "based on the free consent of a woman and a man", and the Constitution cannot be changed during martial law.^[338]^[340]^[341] Civil rights organizations such as Kyiv Pride praised the statement,^[341] though Holos MP Inna Sovsun criticised the lack of details about legal proposals for civil partnerships.^[338]

On 2 December 2022, Zelenskyy said his administration would enter a bill in the Verkhovna Rada that would ban "religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation", referring to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (UOC-MP), from operating in Ukraine.^[342] The bill was passed by parliament and signed by Zelenskyy in August 2024,^[343] after opposition parties protested the bill's delay.^[344] The law treats each parish individually and gives it nine months to cut ties with the UOC-MP, following which a special commission will inspect individual parishes and file lawsuits against non-compliant ones; the court can then decide on a ban in each case.^[345]

Personal life

[edit]

In September 2003, Zelenskyy married Olena Kiyashko, with whom he had attended school and university.^[346]^[347] Kiyashko worked as a scriptwriter at Kvartal 95.^[348] 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 Make the Comedian Laugh: Kids and won ₴50,000.^[27] The family lives in Kyiv.^[347]

Zelenskyy's assets were worth about ₴37 million (about US$1.5 million) in 2018.^[349]

Zelenskyy's first language is Russian, and he is fluent in Ukrainian and English also.^[350]^[351]^[352]^[353] Since becoming president, he has hired a Ukrainian-language tutor and improved his command of the language.^[354]

Achievements, awards, and recognition

[edit]

Awards and decorations

[edit]

In 2022, British newspaper Financial Times^[355] and US magazine Time both selected Zelenskyy as Person of the Year.^[356]

Ukraine: Honorary Diploma of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (2003)^[357]
Czech Republic: Member 1st Class of the Order of the White Lion (2022)^[358]
Estonia: Order of the Tallinn Coat of Arms [et] (2022)^[359]
Finland: Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose of Finland with Collar (2025)^[360]
France: Grand Cross of the Order of the Legion of Honour (2023)^[361]
Germany: Charlemagne Prize (2023)^[362]
Latvia: Member 1st Class of the Order of Viesturs (2022)^[363]
Lithuania: Order of Vytautas the Great with the Golden Chain (2022)^[364]
Poland:
- Jan Karski Eagle Award (2022)^[365]
- Knight of the Order of the White Eagle (2023)^[366]^[367]^[368]
Portugal: Grand Collar of the Order of Liberty (2023)^[369]
Slovakia:
- State Award of Alexander Dubček (2022)^[370]
- Member 1st Class of the Order of the White Double Cross (2024)^[371]
Russia: Boris Nemtsov Prize (2022)^[372]
United Kingdom: Sir Winston Churchill Leadership Award (2022)^[373]
United States:
- Ronald Reagan Freedom Award (2022)^[374]
- John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award (2022)^[375]
- Philadelphia Liberty Medal (2022)^[376]
- Ripple of Hope Award (2022)^[377]
- Golden Plate Award (2024)^[378]

Species named after Zelenskyy

[edit]

Ausichicrinites zelenskyyi, an extinct species of feather star described on 20 July 2022 by a group of Polish paleontologists, is named after Zelenskyy "for his courage and bravery in defending free Ukraine."^[379]^[380]

Selected filmography

[edit]

Films

[edit]

Year	Title	Role
2004	Three Musketeers	writer; d'Artagnan
2008	Horton Hears a Who! (Ukrainian dub)	Mayor Ned McDodd
2009	Love in the Big City	Igor
2010	Love in the Big City 2	Igor
2011	Office Romance. Our Time	Anatoly Efremovich Novoseltsev
2012	Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon	Napoleon
2012	8 First Dates	Nikita Sokolov
2014	Love in Vegas	Igor Zelenskyy
2014	Paddington (Ukrainian dub)	Paddington Bear (voice)^[381]
2015	8 New Dates	Nikita Andreevich Sokolov
2016	8 Best Dates	Nikita Andreevich Sokolov
	Servant of the People 2	Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko
	The Angry Birds Movie (Ukrainian dub)	Red (voice)^[382]
2017	Paddington 2 (Ukrainian dub)	Paddington Bear (voice)^[381]
2018	I, You, He, She	Maksym Tkachenko
2023	Superpower	himself; short interviews with Sean Penn
2024	Turn in the Wound	himself; documentary film by Abel Ferrara

Television shows and appearances

[edit]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	Dancing with the Stars (Ukraine)		as contestant
2008–2012	Svaty ("In-Laws")		as producer
2015–2019	Servant of the People	Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko
2022	64th Annual Grammy Awards	Guest appearance	Special message, as President of Ukraine
2023	12th NFL Honors	Guest appearance	Special message, as President of Ukraine^[383]

Publications

[edit]

Zelensky, Volodymyr (2022). A Message From Ukraine: Speeches, 2019–2022. London: Hutchinson Heinemann. ISBN 978-1-52-915354-5. OCLC 1374537388. A collection of sixteen of Zelenskyy's speeches.

See also

[edit]

The Showman, a 2024 book about Zelenskyy

Notes

[edit]

^ In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Oleksandrovych and the family name is Zelenskyy.
^ Ukrainian: Володимир Олександрович Зеленський, pronounced [woloˈdɪmɪr olekˈsɑndrowɪdʒ‿zeˈlɛnʲsʲkɪj]
^ Zelenskyy's name lacks an established Latin-alphabet spelling, and it has been romanized in various ways: for example Volodymyr Zelensky or Zelenskyi from Ukrainian, or Vladimir Zelenskiy from Russian.^[2] Zelenskyy is the transliteration on his passport, and his administration has used it since he assumed the presidency in 2019.^[2]^[3]
^ From 21 January until 18 April 2019 Zelenskyy did not give interviews.^[73]

References

[edit]

^ Зеленський Володимир Олександрович [Elections of the President of Ukraine 2019]. Central Election Commission (Ukraine) (in Ukrainian). Archived from the original on 14 February 2022. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
^ ^a ^b Dickinson, Peter (9 June 2019). "Zelensky, Zelenskiy, Zelenskyy: Spelling Confusion Doesn't Help Ukraine". Atlantic Council. Archived from the original on 11 June 2019. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
^ Mendel, Iuliia [@IuliiaMendel] (10 June 2019). "Dear colleagues, this is the official form of the last name that the President has in his passport. This was decided by the passport service of Ukraine. The President won't be offended if BBC standards assume different transliteration" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2019 – via Twitter.
^ ^a ^b ^c Як змінювався рівень довіри та підтримки Зеленського та його попередників (оновлено). Слово і Діло (in Ukrainian). Archived from the original on 11 May 2022. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
^ ^a ^b Hosa, Joanna; Wilson, Andrew (25 September 2019). Zelensky Unchained: What Ukraine's New Political Order Means For Its Future (Report). European Council on Foreign Relations. JSTOR resrep21659. Archived from the original on 9 March 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
^ "Ukraine Lifts Prosecutorial Immunity For Members Of Parliament". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 19 December 2019. Archived from the original on 19 February 2022. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
^ Peleschuk, Dan (15 April 2021). "Ukraine's anti-corruption effort struggles, but soldiers on". Eurasianet. Archived from the original on 19 February 2022. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
^ Wilson, Andrew (6 July 2021). Faltering fightback: Zelensky's piecemeal campaign against Ukraine's oligarchs (Report). European Council on Foreign Relations. JSTOR resrep33811. Archived from the original on 26 February 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
^ Khalaf, Roula; Miller, Christopher; Hall, Ben (5 December 2022). "FT Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 'I am more responsible than brave'". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 5 December 2022. Retrieved 15 December 2022.
^ "Українці визначилися з "найкращим президентом" в історії країни – Рейтинг". LIGA (in Russian). 18 May 2020. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
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Further reading

[edit]

Shuster, Simon (23 January 2024). The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-06-330742-1. OCLC 1410393061.

External links

[edit]

Official website
Kvartal 95 Archived 31 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine
Volodymyr Zelenskyy at IMDb
Appearances on C-SPAN

Political offices
Preceded by Petro Poroshenko	President of Ukraine 2019–present	Incumbent

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

6th President of Ukraine (2019–present)

Presidency

Elections

2019 presidential election

Filmography

Film

Directed	Me. You. He. She
Written	Office Romance. Our Time 8 First Dates Me. You. He. She Gulliver Returns (story)
Produced	Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon 8 First Dates Love in Vegas Servant of the People 2 Me. You. He. She

Television

Family

Olena Zelenska (wife)
Oleksandr Zelenskyy (father)

Related

Kvartal 95 Studio
Servant of the People (political party)
Ausichicrinites zelenskyyi
Zelensky: A President in War (2022 film)
Superpower (2023 film)

Category:Volodymyr Zelenskyy

v t e Presidents of Ukraine
Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1920)	Mykhailo Hrushevsky Volodymyr Vynnychenko Symon Petliura (Holovnyi Otaman)
West Ukrainian People's Republic (1918–1919)	Kost Levytsky Yevhen Petrushevych
Hetmanate (1918)	Pavlo Skoropadskyi
Ukrainian People's Republic¹ (1920–1992)	Andriy Livytskyi Stepan Vytvytskyi Mykola Livytskyi Mykola Plaviuk
Ukrainian National Council² (1941)	Kost Levytsky
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic³ (1922–1991)	see First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine and Chairmen of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
Ukraine (since 1991)	Leonid Kravchuk Leonid Kuchma Viktor Yushchenko Viktor Yanukovych Oleksandr Turchynov (Acting) Petro Poroshenko Volodymyr Zelenskyy
¹Presidents of the Ukrainian People's Republic in exile. ² Chairman of the Ukrainian National Council. ³During the Soviet period the republican leader was the 1st secretary of the party, while a head of state de jure was the chairman of the parliament's presidium.

v t e Candidates in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election
Winner	Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Lost in runoff	Petro Poroshenko
Other candidates	Gennady Balashov Roman Bezsmertnyi Olha Bohomolets Inna Bohoslovska Viktor Bondar Yuriy Boyko Oleksandr Danylyuk Yuriy Derevyanko Mykola Haber Anatoliy Hrytsenko Serhiy Kaplin Yurii Karmazin Arkadiy Kornatskiy Ruslan Koshulynskyi Viktor Kryvenko Vitalii Kuprii Illia Kyva Oleh Lyashko Yulia Lytvynenko Oleksandr Moroz Valentyn Nalyvaichenko Roman Nasirov Serhiy Nosenko Andriy Novak Volodymyr Petrov Ruslan Rygovanov Ihor Shevchenko Oleksandr Shevchenko Vitaliy Skotsyk Ihor Smeshko Oleksandr Solovyev Serhiy Taruta Yulia Tymoshenko Yuriy Tymoshenko Oleksandr Vashchenko Oleksandr Vilkul Vasiliy Zhuravlyov
Withdrew	Dmytro Dobrodomov Dmytro Gnap Serhiy Krivonos Yevheniy Murayev Andriy Sadovyi Michel Tereshchenko
Opinion polling

v t e Current heads of state of republics
Africa	Abdelmadjid Tebboune João Lourenço Patrice Talon Duma Boko Ibrahim Traoré* Évariste Ndayishimiye Paul Biya José Maria Neves Faustin-Archange Touadéra Mahamat Déby Azali Assoumani Félix Tshisekedi Denis Sassou Nguesso Ismaïl Omar Guelleh Abdel Fattah el-Sisi Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Isaias Afwerki Taye Atske Selassie Brice Oligui Nguema* Adama Barrow John Mahama Mamady Doumbouya* Umaro Sissoco Embaló Alassane Ouattara William Ruto Joseph Boakai Mohamed al-Menfi* Andry Rajoelina Lazarus Chakwera Assimi Goïta* Mohamed Ould Ghazouani Dharam Gokhool Daniel Chapo Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah Abdourahamane Tchiani* Bola Tinubu Paul Kagame Brahim Ghali Carlos Vila Nova Bassirou Diomaye Faye Wavel Ramkalawan Julius Maada Bio Hassan Sheikh Mohamud Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi Cyril Ramaphosa Salva Kiir Mayardit Transitional Sovereignty Council* Samia Suluhu Hassan Faure Gnassingbé Kais Saied Yoweri Museveni Hakainde Hichilema Emmerson Mnangagwa
Asia	Badra Gunba* Vahagn Khachaturyan Ilham Aliyev Mohammed Shahabuddin Xi Jinping José Ramos-Horta Salome Zourabichvili Droupadi Murmu Prabowo Subianto Ali Khamenei Abdul Latif Rashid Isaac Herzog Kassym-Jomart Tokayev Sadyr Japarov Thongloun Sisoulith Joseph Aoun Mohamed Muizzu Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh Min Aung Hlaing* Ram Chandra Poudel Kim Jong Un Asif Ali Zardari Mahmoud Abbas Bongbong Marcos Tharman Shanmugaratnam Choi Sang-mok* Alan Gagloev Anura Kumara Dissanayake Ahmed al-Sharaa Lai Ching-te Emomali Rahmon Serdar Berdimuhamedow Shavkat Mirziyoyev Lương Cường Rashad al-Alimi*
Europe	Bajram Begaj Alexander Van der Bellen Alexander Lukashenko Denis Bećirović, Željka Cvijanović, and Željko Komšić Rumen Radev Zoran Milanović Nikos Christodoulides Petr Pavel Alar Karis Alexander Stubb Emmanuel Macron Frank-Walter Steinmeier Konstantinos Tasoulas Tamás Sulyok Halla Tómasdóttir Michael D. Higgins Sergio Mattarella Vjosa Osmani Edgars Rinkēvičs Gitanas Nausėda Myriam Spiteri Debono Maia Sandu Jakov Milatović Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova Ersin Tatar Andrzej Duda Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa Ilie Bolojan* Vladimir Putin Francesca Civerchia and Dalibor Riccardi Aleksandar Vučić Peter Pellegrini Nataša Pirc Musar Guy Parmelin, Karin Keller-Sutter, Ignazio Cassis, Albert Rösti, Élisabeth Baume-Schneider, Beat Jans, and Martin Pfister Vadim Krasnoselsky Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Volodymyr Zelenskyy
North America	Sandra Mason Rodrigo Chaves Robles Miguel Díaz-Canel Sylvanie Burton Luis Abinader Nayib Bukele Bernardo Arévalo Fritz Jean* Xiomara Castro Claudia Sheinbaum Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo José Raúl Mulino Christine Kangaloo Donald Trump
South America	Javier Milei Luis Arce Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Gabriel Boric Gustavo Petro Daniel Noboa Irfaan Ali Santiago Peña Dina Boluarte Chan Santokhi Yamandú Orsi Nicolás Maduro
Oceania	Naiqama Lalabalavu Taneti Maamau Hilda Heine Wesley Simina David Adeang Surangel Whipps Jr. Tuimalealiʻifano Vaʻaletoʻa Sualauvi II Nikenike Vurobaravu
Asterisk () indicate an acting head of state · Italics* indicate a head of state of non-UN member state

v t e Time Persons of the Year
1927–1950	Charles Lindbergh (1927) Walter Chrysler (1928) Owen D. Young (1929) Mohandas Gandhi (1930) Pierre Laval (1931) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932) Hugh S. Johnson (1933) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1934) Haile Selassie (1935) Wallis Simpson (1936) Chiang Kai-shek / Soong Mei-ling (1937) Adolf Hitler (1938) Joseph Stalin (1939) Winston Churchill (1940) Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941) Joseph Stalin (1942) George Marshall (1943) Dwight D. Eisenhower (1944) Harry S. Truman (1945) James F. Byrnes (1946) George Marshall (1947) Harry S. Truman (1948) Winston Churchill (1949) The American Fighting-Man (1950)
1951–1975	Mohammed Mosaddeq (1951) Elizabeth II (1952) Konrad Adenauer (1953) John Foster Dulles (1954) Harlow Curtice (1955) Hungarian Freedom Fighters (1956) Nikita Khrushchev (1957) Charles de Gaulle (1958) Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959) U.S. Scientists: George Beadle / Charles Draper / John Enders / Donald A. Glaser / Joshua Lederberg / Willard Libby / Linus Pauling / Edward Purcell / Isidor Rabi / Emilio Segrè / William Shockley / Edward Teller / Charles Townes / James Van Allen / Robert Woodward (1960) John F. Kennedy (1961) Pope John XXIII (1962) Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) William Westmoreland (1965) The Generation Twenty-Five and Under (1966) Lyndon B. Johnson (1967) The Apollo 8 Astronauts: William Anders / Frank Borman / Jim Lovell (1968) The Middle Americans (1969) Willy Brandt (1970) Richard Nixon (1971) Henry Kissinger / Richard Nixon (1972) John Sirica (1973) King Faisal (1974) American Women: Susan Brownmiller / Kathleen Byerly / Alison Cheek / Jill Conway / Betty Ford / Ella Grasso / Carla Hills / Barbara Jordan / Billie Jean King / Susie Sharp / Carol Sutton / Addie Wyatt (1975)
1976–2000	Jimmy Carter (1976) Anwar Sadat (1977) Deng Xiaoping (1978) Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) Ronald Reagan (1980) Lech Wałęsa (1981) The Computer (1982) Ronald Reagan / Yuri Andropov (1983) Peter Ueberroth (1984) Deng Xiaoping (1985) Corazon Aquino (1986) Mikhail Gorbachev (1987) The Endangered Earth (1988) Mikhail Gorbachev (1989) George H. W. Bush (1990) Ted Turner (1991) Bill Clinton (1992) The Peacemakers: Yasser Arafat / F. W. de Klerk / Nelson Mandela / Yitzhak Rabin (1993) Pope John Paul II (1994) Newt Gingrich (1995) David Ho (1996) Andrew Grove (1997) Bill Clinton / Ken Starr (1998) Jeff Bezos (1999) George W. Bush (2000)
2001–present	Rudolph Giuliani (2001) The Whistleblowers: Cynthia Cooper / Coleen Rowley / Sherron Watkins (2002) The American Soldier (2003) George W. Bush (2004) The Good Samaritans: Bono / Bill Gates / Melinda Gates (2005) You (2006) Vladimir Putin (2007) Barack Obama (2008) Ben Bernanke (2009) Mark Zuckerberg (2010) The Protester (2011) Barack Obama (2012) Pope Francis (2013) Ebola Fighters: Dr. Jerry Brown / Dr. Kent Brantly / Ella Watson-Stryker / Foday Gollah / Salome Karwah (2014) Angela Merkel (2015) Donald Trump (2016) The Silence Breakers (2017) The Guardians: Jamal Khashoggi / Maria Ressa / Wa Lone / Kyaw Soe Oo / Staff of The Capital (2018) Greta Thunberg (2019) Joe Biden / Kamala Harris (2020) Elon Musk (2021) Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Spirit of Ukraine (2022) Taylor Swift (2023) Donald Trump (2024)

Russian invasion of Ukraine

Part of the Russo-Ukrainian War

Overview
General	Outline Timeline Prelude Feb – Apr 2022 Apr – Aug 2022 Aug – Nov 2022 Nov 2022 – Jun 2023 Jun – Aug 2023 Sep – Nov 2023 Dec 2023 – Mar 2024 Apr – Jul 2024 Aug – Dec 2024 Jan 2025 – present Aerial warfare Defense lines Foreign fighters Information war Naval warfare Legality Map Order of battle Peace negotiations Ukraine's Peace Formula China peace proposal June 2024 peace summit Proposed no-fly zone Red lines Reparations Territorial control Women
Prelude	Reactions Disinformation Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory Ukraine and weapons of mass destruction 2021 Russia–United States summit 2021 Black Sea incident Belarus–European Union border crisis "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" Crimea Platform Zapad 2021 December 2021 ultimatum 2022 Ukraine cyberattacks Zametil 2022 Union Resolve 2022 Stanytsia Luhanska kindergarten bombing British–Polish–Ukrainian trilateral pact Evacuation of the Donetsk PR and Luhansk PR Mobilization in Donetsk PR and Luhansk PR "Address concerning the events in Ukraine" "On conducting a special military operation"
Background	Dissolution of the Soviet Union 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine Annexation of Crimea reactions War in Donbas 2022 timeline Minsk agreements humanitarian situation international recognition of the Donetsk PR and Luhansk PR Putinism Foundations of Geopolitics Novorossiya Ruscism Russian irredentism Russian imperialism
Foreign relations	Russia–Ukraine Belarus–Ukraine Belarus–Russia Russia–United States Ukraine–United States Russia–NATO Ukraine–NATO enlargement of NATO eastward expansion controversy in Russia open door policy

Airstrikes
by city

Airstrikes
on military
targets

Resistance

Russian-occupied Ukraine	Popular Resistance of Ukraine Berdiansk Partisan Army Yellow Ribbon Atesh
Belarus and Russia	Assassination of Vladlen Tatarsky Civic Council Irpin Declaration Killing of Darya Dugina National Republican Army Military commissariats arsons Ust-Ilimsk military commissariat shooting Black Bridge Rail war in Russia Stop the Wagons Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists Rail war in Belarus Busly liaciać BYPOL Community of Railway Workers Cyber Partisans

Russian
occupations

Flags used in Russian-occupied Ukraine
Ongoing	Annexation referendums Annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts Elections in Russian-occupied Ukraine Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol Donetsk Oblast Kharkiv Oblast Kherson Oblast Luhansk Oblast Mykolaiv Oblast Zaporizhzhia Oblast Sumy Oblast (2025, reentry)
Previous	Chernihiv Oblast Kyiv Oblast Odesa Oblast Sumy Oblast (2022) Zhytomyr Oblast

Potentially
related

Other

War crimes
General	Accusations of genocide in Donbas Allegations of genocide of Ukrainians child abductions Attacks on hospitals Cluster munitions Incendiary weapons Landmines Russian filtration camps Russian mobile crematoriums Russian theft of Ukrainian grain Russian torture chambers Looting Sexual violence Mistreatment of prisoners of war
Attacks on civilians	February 2022 Kharkiv cluster bombing Kharkiv government building airstrike 3 March Chernihiv bombing Irpin refugee column shelling Mariupol hospital airstrike Stara Krasnianka care house attack Mykolaiv cluster bombing March 2022 Donetsk attack 2022 Borodianka airstrikes Chernihiv breadline attack Mariupol theatre airstrike Kyiv shopping centre bombing Sumykhimprom ammonia leak March 2022 Kharkiv cluster bombing Mykolaiv government building missile strike Bucha massacre Kramatorsk railway station attack April 2022 Kharkiv cluster bombing Bilohorivka school bombing Shooting of Andrii Bohomaz Maisky Market attack Kremenchuk shopping mall attack Serhiivka missile strike Chasiv Yar missile strike Olenivka prison massacre Kharkiv dormitories missile strike Chaplyne railway station attack Izium mass graves September 2022 Donetsk attack Zaporizhzhia civilian convoy attack Kupiansk civilian convoy shelling Zaporizhzhia residential building airstrike Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure 2023 Dnipro residential building airstrike Sloviansk airstrike Uman missile strike Kramatorsk restaurant missile strike Lyman cluster bombing 2023 Pokrovsk missile strike Chernihiv missile strike Kostiantynivka missile strike Hroza missile attack Volnovakha massacre December 2023 strikes 2024 Pokrovsk missile strike 2024 Donetsk attack Lysychansk missile strike 6 March 2024 Odesa strike March 2024 strikes May 2024 Kharkiv strikes 8 July 2024 strikes 2024 Kostiantynivka supermarket missile attack 26 August 2024 strikes September 2024 Poltava strike November 2024 strikes 2025 Sumy airstrike
Crimes against soldiers	Torture of Russian soldiers in Mala Rohan Torture and castration of a Ukrainian POW in Pryvillia Rape of Donetsk People's Republic soldiers by Kadyrovites Murder of Yevgeny Nuzhin Makiivka surrender incident Execution of Oleksandr Matsievskyi 2022 Ukrainian prisoner of war beheading
Legal cases	ICC investigation Arrest warrants ICJ court case Task Force on Accountability Universal jurisdiction Crime of aggression Criminal proceedings Vadim Shishimarin Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov Anton Cherednik

Reactions

States
and
official
entities

General	Sanctions people and organizations restrictions on transit to Kaliningrad Oblast Military aid European Union Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine People's Bayraktar Signmyrocket.com Humanitarian aid Sanctioned yachts Relations with Russia
Ukraine	Application to NATO Be Brave Like Ukraine Brave1 Bring Kids Back UA [uk] Ban on Russia-associated religious groups Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War Decolonization and derussification law Delta Destroyed Russian military equipment exhibition For Courage and Bravery (Ukraine) Grain From Ukraine Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Hero City I Want to Live International Legion and other foreign units Belarusian Volunteer Corps Terror Battalion Black Maple Company Canadian-Ukrainian Brigade Freedom of Russia Legion German Volunteer Corps Karelian National Battalion Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment Norman Brigade Pahonia Regiment Polish Volunteer Corps Romanian Battlegroup Getica Russian Volunteer Corps Separate Special Purpose Battalion Sibir Battalion Turan Battalion International Sponsors of War Forced confiscation law of Russian property [ru; uk] Look for Your Own Lukoil sanctions Martial law Mobilization Media Center Ukraine National Council for the Recovery of Ukraine from the War [uk] National Multi-Subject Test [uk] North Korea–Ukraine relations Points of Invincibility Recognition of Ichkeria Rescuer City Save Ukrainian Culture [uk] Syria–Ukraine relations Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra United24 United News
Russia	highways in the annexed territories A290 A291 "Tavrida" R260 R280 "Novorossiya" 2022 Moscow rally 2023 Moscow rally 2022 Moscow Victory Day Parade 2023 Moscow Victory Day Parade 2024 Moscow Victory Day Parade 2023 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly Blockade of Ukraine [ru] Bohdan Khmelnytsky Battalion Censorship in Russia [ru] Chechnya Pro-Ukrainian Chechen fighters Conmemorative Medal "Participant of a Special Military Operation" [ru] Conversations about Important Things Krasovsky case Legalization of parallel imports [ru] Manifesto of the South Russian People's Council Martial law Masha Moskalyova case Metropolis of Crimea Mikhail Simonov case Mobilization Recruitment of irregular forces [ru] Operation Doppelgänger Opinion polling [ru] Orthodox Christmas truce proposal Wagner Group–Ministry of Defense conflict Russian Orthodox clergymen appeal against war Salvation Committee for Peace and Order Special Coordinating Council Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory Unfriendly countries list War censorship laws We Are Together. Sports "What Russia Should Do with Ukraine"
United States	2022 Joe Biden speech in Warsaw 2022 State of the Union Address Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 Disinformation Governance Board Executive Order 14071 Pentagon document leaks Task Force KleptoCapture Ukraine Defense Contact Group Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative
Other countries	Belarus Canada Canada–Ukraine authorization for emergency travel China Closer ties with Russia Chinese peace plan Hong Kong Croatia Denmark Danish European Union defence opt-out referendum France Mission Aigle Georgia Germany German Taurus controversy Taurus leak Zeitenwende speech Hungary India Operation Ganga Iran Closer ties with Russia Israel Operation Israel Guarantees Lithuania Moldova New Zealand Russia Sanctions Act North Korea Poland border crisis with Ukraine Syria [ru] Taiwan United Kingdom Economic Crime Act Homes for Ukraine Operation Interflex 2025 London Summit on Ukraine Coalition of the willing
United Nations	Emergency special session Resolution ES-11/1 Resolution ES-11/2 Resolution ES-11/3 Resolution ES-11/4 Resolution ES-11/5 Resolution ES-11/6 Resolution ES-11/7 Security Council Resolution 2623 Resolution A/RES/77/229 Easter truce
International organizations	Accession of Moldova to the EU Accession of Ukraine to the EU Brussels summit European Political Community 1st summit 2nd summit 3rd summit Madrid summit NATO virtual summit Operation Oscar Ramstein Air Base meeting EU–Ukraine Summit REPowerEU Steadfast Defender 2024 SWIFT ban against Russian banks Ukraine Recovery Conference Versailles declaration 2023 Vilnius summit 15th BRICS summit 2024 Washington summit Weimar+
Other	Consecration of Russia F-16 training coalition Finland–NATO relations Finland–Russia border barrier Iron diplomacy Proposed Russian annexation of South Ossetia Recognition of Russia as a terrorist state Removal of monuments and memorials Streets renamed Ukraine Square, Oslo Serving heads of state and government that have visited Ukraine during the invasion Sweden–NATO relations Swedish anti-terrorism bill

Public

Protests	In Ukraine in Russian-occupied Ukraine demolition of monuments to Alexander Pushkin ArmWomenNow Ukrainian Artistic Front In Russia Angry patriots Club of Angry Patriots Anti-War Committee Suspicious deaths of Russian businesspeople Congress of People's Deputies Council of Mothers and Wives Feminist Anti-War Resistance Flower protests Marina Ovsyannikova Russian Action Committee North Caucasian protests 2022 Russian Far East protests State Duma initiative for charging Vladimir Putin of high treason White-blue-white flag In Belarus In China Great Translation Movement In Czech Republic Czech Republic First!
Companies	Address of the Russian Union of Rectors Boycott of Russia and Belarus "Do not buy Russian goods!" E.N.O.T. Corp. Igor Mangushev McDonald's in Russia Vkusno i tochka NashStore [ru] People's Satellite Starlink satellites Stop Bloody Energy Wagner Group Andrey Aleksandrovich Medvedev Death of Nemes Tarimo Yale CELI List of Companies
Technology	Anonymous and the invasion alerts.in.ua DDoS attacks on Romania DeepStateMap.Live IT Army of Ukraine Killnet Liveuamap Open-source intelligence peacenotwar Russian Asset Tracker Squad303 [pl] Ukraine Siren Alerts Wikipedia threat to block in Russia detention of Mark Bernstein
Spies	Diplomatic expulsions during the Russo-Ukrainian War Russian spies in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Other	Association of Azovstal Defenders' Families Black Sea Grain Initiative Collaboration with Russia We Are Together with Russia Concert for Ukraine Free Buryatia Foundation Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum Game4Ukraine Get Lost Global Tour for Peace Go by the Forest Guide to the Free World Mozart Group Olena Zelenska Foundation Open letter from Nobel laureates Pavel Sudoplatov Battalion Rubikus.HelpUA Ruslan Shostak Charitable Foundation Russia's War Crimes House Save Ukraine Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation Spain letter bomb attacks Yermak-McFaul Expert Group on Russian Sanctions Pavel Filatyev True Russia Volos Declaration Wimbledon ban

Impact

Effects

Human
rights

Terms and
phrases

"And now I will show you where the attack on Belarus was prepared from"
"Anglo-Saxons"
"Bavovna"
"Grandpa in his bunker"
"Good evening, we are from Ukraine"
"Orc"
"Putin khuylo!"
"Khuy Voyne!"
"Russia is here forever [uk]"
"Russian warship, go fuck yourself"
"Slava Ukraini!"
"Special military operation"
"To bomb Voronezh"
"Strength is in truth"
"Westsplaining"
"Where have you been for eight years?"
"Without you"

Popular
culture

Songs	"12" "Bakhmut Fortress" "Bayraktar" "Bilia topoli" "City of Mary" "Flowers of Minefields" "Generation Cancellation" "Generation Z" "I'm Russian" "Oyda" "Hey, Hey, Rise Up!" "Mama ŠČ!" "Oi u luzi chervona kalyna" "Slava Ukraini!" "Stefania" "Ukraine" "Crushed"
Films	20 Days in Mariupol A Rising Fury Follow Me Intercepted Russians at War Turn in the Wound Ukraine on Fire 2 [uk]
Other	Babylon'13 Back to the Cold War Borodianka cat [uk] Ghost of Kyiv Kherson watermelon Královec Region Madonna of Kyiv North Atlantic Fella Organization Newspeak in Russia [ru; uk] Patron "Putler" "Putinversteher" Raccoon of Kherson Saint Javelin Saint Mariuburg [ru; uk] Vasylkiv maiolica rooster Vladimir Putin's meeting table Walk of the Brave "Z" military symbol

Key people
Ukrainians	Volodymyr Zelenskyy speeches during the invasion visit to the United States visit to the United Kingdom visits to Europe Andriy Biletsky Andriy Yermak Denis Pushilin Denys Shmyhal Denys Kireyev Denys Monastyrsky Denys Prokopenko Iryna Venediktova Kyrylo Budanov Leonid Pasechnik Mykhailo Drapatyi Mykola Oleschuk Oleksandr Pavlyuk Oleksandr Syrskyi Oleksii Reznikov Oleksiy Danilov Oleksiy Neizhpapa Ruslan Khomchak Rustem Umerov Sergiy Kyslytsya Serhiy Shaptala Serhii Sternenko Valerii Zaluzhnyi Vasyl Malyuk Vitali Klitschko Yevhen Moisiuk
Russians	Vladimir Putin Aleksandr Dvornikov Aleksandr Lapin Aleksey Dyumin Aleksey Nagin Alexander Bortnikov Andrei Kolesnikov Andrei Sychevoi Andrey Belousov Andrey Vorobyov Dmitry Medvedev Gennady Zhidko Igor Kastyukevich Ivan Popov Mikhail Mishustin Maria Lvova-Belova Nikolai Patrushev Oleg Salyukov Oleg Tsokov Ramzan Kadyrov Roman Berdnikov Rustam Muradov Sergey Kobylash Sergey Lavrov Sergey Naryshkin Sergei Shoigu Sergey Surovikin Timur Ivanov Valery Gerasimov Viktor Sokolov Viktor Zolotov Vitaly Gerasimov Vyacheslav Gladkov Vyacheslav Volodin Yevgeny Prigozhin
Other	Alexander Lukashenko

Related

Category

Authority control databases
International	ISNI VIAF WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Japan Italy Czech Republic Portugal Netherlands Norway Latvia Croatia Sweden Poland Israel Finland Catalonia
Artists	MusicBrainz
People	Deutsche Biographie DDB
Other	IdRef