Zelensky: A Biography of Ukraine's War Leader

Zelensky is the first major biography of Ukraine's leader written for a Western audience.

Told with flair and authority, it is the gripping story of one of the most admired and inspirational leaders in the world.

Millions who have admired Volodymyr Zelensky's defiance during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will learn much from this up-to-date biography of the Ukrainian President.

Zelensky's life to date has been packed with drama and action.

By the age of 20, the Jewish boy from the provincial town of Kryvyi Rih had become a star of the stage.

• At 30, he headed a multimillion-dollar TV company.

• At 40, he took on Ukraine’s corrupt political and business elite in a TV drama where he played a history teacher who becomes President.

• Then he launched a real-life political party named after the TV show, won a landslide victory and became Ukraine's real President.

• When Russian troops flooded across the border, Zelensky refused Western offers to leave Kyiv. He has marshalled Ukraine's resistance and successfully obtained Western missile systems and anti-tank weapons.

Zelensky said: ‘If I am elected, they will first sling mud at me. Then they will learn to respect me. And finally cry when I leave.’

Covering Zelensky’s background and bustling TV career through to his first, controversial years in office to Russia’s full-scale blitzkrieg, Zelensky is written by a long-standing Russia and Ukraine reporter and a Russian- and Ukrainian speaking researcher.

It’s a pithy biography of Zelensky for anyone who wants to understand Ukraine’s charismatic head of state, his complex country, and its vexed relationship with Russia.

Covering Zelensky's life from his childhood to the Ukrainian presidency, Zelensky deals with: his background in a Russian-speaking region of Ukraine; his early career in TV taking part in KVN talent competitions; his rise through the Ukrainian and Russian television industry; and his breakthrough moment in the TV series Servant of the People playing a teacher, Vasyl Holoborodko, who dreams of reforming Ukraine and ending its corruption.

The show becomes a reality and Zelensky and his party, called Servant of the People, take power.

Zelensky's presidency is dogged by controversy concerning his attempts to curry favor with the US President Donald Trump and the offshoring of tens of millions of dollars.

Zelensky battles political rivals and takes on powerful vested interests in Europe’s second-largest country – before fighting a superpower in a fight most assume Ukraine will quickly lose (but has not).

Table of Contents

Introduction. Russia's President Vladimir Putin shows his contempt for Ukraine's new president Volydymyr Zelensky, an actor turned politician who has swept to power after starring in a TV drama Servant of the People, where he plays a history teacher who dreams of becoming President of Ukraine

1. Al Pacino. Volodymyr Zelensky grows up in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, and starts to compete in KVN talent championships in Ukraine and Russia, following the fall of the Soviet Union, while also wooing his future wife Olena

2. Bad Neighbours. Charing the history of Ukraine from Viking settlements to the 21st Century, including the vexed relationship between Russia, the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and Volydymyr Zelensky's progression through the Ukrainian and Russian TV industry via KVN shows

3. The Comedy Factory. Ukraine develops as an independent state, still under pressure from Russia, while Volydymyr Zelensky makes his name in Ukraine and Russia with his troupe and TV company Kvartal 95.

4. Maidan. Modern Ukraine erupts in protests amid the Orange Revolution against corrupt elections and government. Volydymyr Zelensky eventually finds his forte in political satire. Mentions Maidan Square, Yuriy Koryavchenkov, Vitali Klitschko, Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Yanukovych, Viktor Yushchenko

5. Servant of the People. Volydmyr Zelensky starts a TV show, Servant of the People, playing a teach