Volodymyr Zelenskyy Biceps Height Weight Age Wiki Net Worth, Affairs, Marriage, Wife, Children, Family Biography & much more. Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician, former actor and comedian who has been serving as the president of Ukraine since 2019.
Zelenskyy grew up in Kryvyi Rih, a Russian-speaking region in southeastern Ukraine. Prior to his acting career, Zelenskyy obtained a degree in law from the Kyiv National Economic University. He then pursued comedy and created the production company Kvartal 95, which produces films, cartoons, and TV shows including Servant of the People, in which Zelenskyy played the role of president of Ukraine. The series aired from 2015 to 2019 and was immensely popular. A political party bearing the same name as the television show was created in March 2018 by employees of Kvartal 95.
Zelenskyy announced his candidacy for the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election on the evening of 31 December 2018, alongside the New Year’s Eve address of President Petro Poroshenko on 1+1 TV Channel. A political outsider, he had already become one of the frontrunners in opinion polls for the election. He won the election with 73.2 per cent of the vote in the second round, defeating Poroshenko. Identifying as a populist, he has positioned himself as an anti-establishment, anti-corruption figure.
As president, Zelenskyy has been a proponent of e-government and unity between the Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking parts of the country’s population. His communication style heavily utilises social media, particularly Instagram. His party won a landslide victory in a snap legislative election held shortly after his inauguration as president. During his administration, Zelenskyy oversaw the lifting of legal immunity for members of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recession, and some progress in tackling corruption. Critics of Zelenskyy claim that in taking power away from the Ukrainian oligarchs, he has sought to centralise authority and strengthen his personal position.
Zelenskyy promised to end Ukraine’s protracted conflict with Russia as part of his presidential campaign, and attempted to engage in dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelenskyy’s administration faced an escalation of tensions with Russia in 2021, culminating in the launch of an ongoing full-scale Russian invasion 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. 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. After the commencement of the invasion, Zelenskyy declared martial law across Ukraine and general mobilisation.
Early life
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy was born to Jewish parents on 25 January 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, then in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. His father, Oleksandr Zelenskyy, is a professor and head of Department of Cybernetics and Computing Hardware at the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics; his mother, Rymma Zelenska, used to work as an engineer. His grandfather, Semyon (Simon) Ivanovych Zelenskyy, served 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. Prior to starting elementary school, Zelenskyy lived for four years in the Mongolian city of Erdenet, where his father worked. 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, but did not go on to work in the legal field.
Personal life
In September 2003, Zelenskyy married Olena Kiyashko, with whom he had attended school. 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 hryvnias.
Zelenskyy’s first language is Russian, and he is also fluent in Ukrainian and English. His assets were worth about 37 million hryvnias (about $1.5 million USD) in 2018.
On 9 November 2020, it was announced that Zelenskyy tested positive for COVID-19 and was hospitalised three days later. It was announced on 23 November that he had fully recovered from the virus.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy Height Weight Age Wife Children Family Biography
| Celebrated Name: | Volodymyr Zelenskyy |
| Real Name/Full Name: | Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy |
| Gender: | Male |
| Age (as in 2022): | 45 |
| Birthdate: | January 25, 1978 |
| Birthplace: | Kryvyi Rih |
| Nationality: | Ukrainian |
| Height: | 5 ft. 7 in. |
| Weight: | 161 lb. |
| Sexual Orientation: | Straight |
| Marital Status: | Married |
| Wife/Spouse | Olena Kiyashko |
| Children/Kids: | Two: Kiril and Aleksandra |
| Dating/Girlfriend Name: | N/A |
| Is Volodymyr Zelensky Gay? | No |
| Highest Political Office: | President of the Ukraine |
| Profession: | Comedian, Actor, Politician |
| Colleges Attended: | Kyiv National Economic University |
| Degrees: | Law Degree |
| Salary: | 336,000 per year (in dollars, about $13,500) |
| Net Worth in 2021: | UAH 28,602,468 (the equivalent of just over $1 million in the US) |
Entertainment career
At age 17, he joined the local KVN (a comedy competition) team and was soon invited to join the united Ukrainian team “Zaporizhia-Kryvyi Rih-Transit” which performed in the KVN’s Major League and eventually won in 1997. 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, the team members spent a lot of the time in Moscow and constantly toured around post-Soviet countries.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.
In 2008, he starred in the feature film Love in the Big City, and its sequel, Love in the Big City 2. Zelenskyy 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.
Zelenskyy in Prague in 2009
Zelenskyy was a member of the board and the general producer of the TV channel Inter from 2010 to 2012.
In August 2014, Zelenskyy spoke out against the intention of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture to ban Russian artists from Ukraine.Since 2015, Ukraine has banned Russian artists and other Russian works of culture from entering Ukraine. In 2018, the romantic comedy Love in the Big City 2 starring Zelenskyy was banned in Ukraine.
After the Ukrainian media had reported that during the war in Donbas Zelenskyy’s Kvartal 95 had donated 1 million hryvnias to the Ukrainian army, some Russian politicians and artists petitioned for a ban on his works in Russia. Once again, Zelenskyy spoke out against the intention of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture to ban Russian artists from Ukraine.
Kvartal 95 performance in 2018
In 2015, Zelenskyy became the star of the television series Servant of the People, where he played the role of the president of Ukraine. 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 government corruption in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s comedy series Svaty (“In-laws”) was banned for display on the territory of Ukraine in 2017. The ban was lifted in March 2019.
Zelenskyy worked mostly in Russian language productions. His first role in the Ukrainian language was the romantic comedy I, You, He, She which appeared on the screens of Ukraine in December 2018. The first version of the script was written in Ukrainian but was translated into Russian for the Lithuanian actress Agnė Grudytė. Then the movie was dubbed into Ukrainian.
Start of political career
The political party Servant of the People was created in March 2018 by people from the television production company Kvartal 95, which also created the television series of the same name.
In a March 2019 interview with Der Spiegel, Zelenskyy stated he went into politics to restore trust in politicians and that he wanted “to bring professional, decent people to power” and “would really like to change the mood and timbre of the political establishment, as much as possible”.
Starting 31 December 2018, Zelenskyy led a successful, almost entirely virtual, presidential campaign to unseat incumbent President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, in just three to four months. Zelenskyy clearly won both the first round of elections on 31 March, and the run-off election on 21 April 2019. One of Zelenskyy’s presidential campaign promises was that he would only serve one term in office .
Selected filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Love in the Big City | Igor |
| 2011 | Office Romance. Our Time | Anatoly Efremovich Novoseltsev |
| 2012 | Love in the Big City 2 | Igor |
| 2012 | Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon | Napoleon |
| 2012 | 8 First Dates | Nikita Sokolov |
| 2014 | Love in Vegas | Igor Zelensky |
| 2015 | 8 New Dates | Nikita Andreevich Sokolov |
| 2018 | I, You, He, She | Maksym Tkachenko |
Television series and shows
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Dancing with the Stars (Ukraine) | |
| 2008–2012 | Svaty | |
| 2015–2019 | Servant of the People | Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko |
2021–22 Russo-Ukrainian crisis
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.
On 26 November 2021, Zelenskyy accused Russia and Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov of backing a plan to overthrow his government. 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.” In December 2021, Zelenskyy called for preemptive action against Russia.
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.”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. Zelenskyy said that “we do not see a bigger escalation” than in early 2021 when Russia’s military build-up started. Zelenskyy and U.S. President Joe Biden disagreed on how imminent the threat was.
On 19 February, as worries of a Russian invasion of Ukraine grew, Zelenskyy warned a security forum 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.
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. In part of the address, he spoke in Russian to the people of Russia, appealing to them to pressure their leadership to prevent war. He also refuted 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 personal connections to the area.
Russo-Ukrainian War
Zelenskyy supported the late 2013 and early 2014 Euromaidan movement. During the war in Donbas, he actively supported the Ukrainian army. Zelenskyy helped fund a volunteer battalion fighting on Donbas.
In a 2014 interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda in Ukraine, Zelenskyy said that he would have liked to pay a visit to Crimea, but would avoid it because “armed people are there”. In August 2014, Zelenskyy performed for Ukrainian troops in Mariupol and later his studio donated a million hryvnias to the Ukrainian army. 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.
In an interview in December 2018, Zelenskyy stated that as president he would try to end the ongoing war in Donbas by negotiating with Russia.
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”. He did not rule out holding a referendum on the issue. 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”. 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.
Zelenskyy has come out against targeting the Russian language in Ukraine and the banning of artists for their political opinions (such as those viewed by the Ukrainian Government as anti-Ukrainian). In April 2019, he stated that he was not against a Ukrainian language quota (on radio and TV) and that Russian artists “who have turned into (anti-Ukrainian) politicians” should remain banned from entering Ukraine. He simultaneously floated this idea about the Ukrainian language quota: “you can change them a little”.
In response to suggestions to the contrary, he stated in April 2019 that he regarded Russian President Vladimir Putin “as an enemy”.On 2 May 2019, Zelenskyy wrote on Facebook that “the border is the only thing Russia and Ukraine have in common”.
In August 2021, Zelenskyy warned that the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany was “a dangerous weapon, not only for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe.”