Undoubtedly, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has had the most difficult days of his government this week since He assumed the presidency of his country on May 20, 2019.
Zelensky, who took office after a stunning general election victory against former President Petro Poroshenko, said in a televised statement on Thursday that the world had left them alone in the face of the Russian incursion.
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The president took office as the sixth president of Ukraine as a political novice, although he had already been ‘president’ on the small screen, in a Ukrainian television series called ‘Servant of the people’.
Zelensky is the youngest president of Ukraine since its independence.
Known especially for his monologues, during his campaign, Zelenski knew how to take advantage of the atmosphere of discontent among Ukrainians against the traditional parties, considered corrupt and ineffective, and the disappointment left by the pro-Western uprising in Maidan Square, which allowed the presidency of the president Petro Poroshenko.
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The “showman”, 41 years old and father of two children, is originally from Kryvy Rig, an industrial city in the center of the country, known in Soviet times for the presence of gangs, crime and violence that plagued the streets.
The son of a Jewish couple – father a teacher and mother an engineer – Zelensky studied law at the department of the National University of Economics, meanwhile, he began to venture into comedy with presentations that questioned the strong repression exerted by the government at the time.
Later, while he put aside the legal profession, his humorous career took off with the arrival on Ukrainian television in the middle of the century, and his name became so strong that he came to participate in well-known films in Ukraine and Russia.
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One of Zelenski’s most recognized characters was his leading role in the television series ‘The Servant of the People’, where played Vasily Golorobdko, a professor who unexpectedly becomes the president of Ukraine after appearing in a viral video in which he complains about corruption.
When I announced that I was running for president, they called me a clown. I’m a clown and I’m proud of it
He himself said in an interview with the BBC that the success of the show is due precisely to the fact that people want to see a president as the character.
For this reason, he decided to run for the presidency of Ukraine through a video that went viral and was broadcast on a private channel (instead of President Poroshenko’s message), making it clear that it was not an advertising strategy or a joke.
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“When I announced that I was running for president, they called me a clown. I’m a clown and I’m proud of it,” he declared then.
When the president was elected, the president was accused of being a puppet of the oligarch Igor Kolomoiski, an enemy of President Petro Poroshenko and owner of the television network that broadcast his program, which the actor has repeatedly denied.
AFP and Agencies
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