Volodymyr Zelensky has been president of Ukraine since May 2019. Born on January 25, 1978, in Kryvyi Rih, he took a law degree at Kyiv National Economic University in 2000 and built a career in comedy with the Kvartal 95 troupe and studio. From 2015 he starred in the sitcom Servant of the People as a teacher who becomes president and takes on corruption; in 2018 Kvartal 95 registered a political party under the same name, and he announced his candidacy on New Year's Eve that year.
He won the April 21, 2019 runoff with 73.22 percent against the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, after a campaign against corruption that pledged to end the war in Donetsk and Luhansk and supported eventual EU and NATO membership. In his inaugural address on May 20 he dissolved parliament and called early elections. In December 2019 he met Vladimir Putin at a summit in Paris that agreed a prisoner exchange and a ceasefire. On November 5, 2021, he signed an anti-oligarch law that created a register of oligarchs, barred them from funding parties and buying privatized state assets, and required officials to declare contacts with them. "There can be no other option but to dismantle the oligarchic system," he said, tying the step to overcoming poverty and joining the European community.
Russia began its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, and he declared martial law the same day. Four days later he signed Ukraine's application to join the European Union; EU leaders granted candidate status on June 23, 2022, and accession negotiations opened on June 25, 2024. On September 30, 2022, after Russia announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, he signed an application for accelerated NATO accession. His five-year term ended in May 2024 with no election held, since Ukrainian law bars elections under martial law. In February 2025 parliament passed a resolution affirming his legitimacy, citing the constitutional article that keeps a president in office until a successor takes office, after Donald Trump called him a "dictator".
On July 22, 2025, he signed a law expanding the prosecutor general's authority over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the anti-corruption prosecutor's office. After street protests in Kyiv, Lviv and Dnipro and warnings from EU officials, he signed a replacement law on July 31 restoring their independence, which parliament had passed 331 to 0. In December 2025 he said Ukraine could drop its demand for NATO membership in exchange for legally binding security guarantees, including Article 5-like guarantees from the United States, while refusing to cede territory. Addressing the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2026, he called for more pressure on Russia: "The more freedom Putin has to act, the more dangerous the world becomes for everyone else."
Volodymyr Zelensky is associated with Pragmatic Centrist. See the archetype