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littlemissmartypants

(32,090 posts) Sun Jan 25, 2026, 04:48 AM 10 hrs ago

💐❤️💐 Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

Volodymyr Zelensky, born on January 25, 1978, is a Ukrainian actor and comedian who became president of Ukraine in 2019. Despite being new to politics, his anti-corruption stance gained him widespread support, which, combined with his strong online presence, translated into a solid base of voters. In the 2019 presidential election, he achieved a landslide victory against the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko. Zelensky's leadership during the Russian invasion of Ukraine has garnered him global recognition.

Zelensky was born to Jewish parents in the industrial metropolis of Kryvyy Rih in southern Ukraine. When he was a small child, his family relocated to Erdenet, Mongolia, for four years before returning to Kryvyy Rih, where Zelensky entered school. Like many people from Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, he grew up as a native Russian speaker, but he also acquired fluency in both Ukrainian and English. In 1995 he entered Kryvyy Rih Economic Institute, the local campus of Kyiv National Economic University, and in 2000 he graduated with a law degree.

Although Zelensky was licensed to practice law, his career was already headed in a different direction. While still a student, he had become active in theatre, and this would become his primary focus. In 1997 his performance group, Kvartal 95 (“Quarter 95,” the neighbourhood in central Kryvyy Rih where Zelensky spent his childhood), appeared in the televised finals of KVN (Klub vesyólykh i nakhódchivykh; “Club of the Funny and Inventive People”), a popular improvisational comedy competition that was broadcast throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States. Zelensky and Kvartal 95 became regulars on KVN, and they appeared on the program until 2003. That year Zelensky cofounded Studio Kvartal 95, a production company that would become one of Ukraine’s most successful and prolific entertainment studios. Zelensky would serve as artistic director of Studio Kvartal 95 from the company’s creation until 2011, when he was named general producer of the Ukrainian television channel Inter TV.

Zelensky left Inter TV in 2012, and in October of that year he and Kvartal 95 concluded a joint production agreement with the Ukrainian network 1+1. That network was owned by Ihor Kolomoisky, one of the wealthiest people in Ukraine, and the relationship between Zelensky and Kolomoisky would become the subject of scrutiny when Zelensky declared his intention to enter politics. In addition to working in television during this period, Zelensky appeared in a number of feature films, including the historical farce Rzhevskiy Versus Napoleon (2012) and the romantic comedies 8 First Dates (2012) and 8 New Dates (2015).

More...
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Volodymyr-Zelensky