Free Essay Sample: Volodymyr Zelenskiy vs Vladimir Putin

President Zelenskyy went from humble beginnings to the President of Ukraine, and it seems it was for the betterment of the entire country. Before Zelenskyy was president it was Petro Poroshenko. He led Ukraine through the first stage of the Russo-Ukrainian war which has been ongoing since 2014. He also began the process of being integrated into the European Union by signing the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement. Unfortunately for him Inflation was the highest in 2015 at 48.70%. The last time it was this high was in 1996 at 80.33%. The lowest Poroshenko managed to get was 7.89% compared to Zelenskyy’s 2.73% in 2020.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy was born as an only child to Oleksandr and Rimma Zelenskyy, on January 25, 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, he was also married to his wife Olena Zelenska in 2003. He has 2 children, his oldest is Oleksandra Zelenska who was born on July 15, 2004, and his youngest is Kiril Zelensky who was born in 2013. His wife was born on February 6, 1978, also in Kryvyi Rih. At roughly 5 years old he lived in Erdenet, Mongolia for four years before he moved back to Kryvyi Rih and attended  Kryvyi Rih Economic Institute. In 2000 he graduated with a law degree, but became an entertainer after co-founding a comedy troupe in the late 1990’s, and in 2003 he launched the production company Kvartal 95, and he regularly appeared on KVN. He was also married to his wife Olenska Zelenska this year and. From that point to 2018 he was an actor, appearing in multiple shows such as No Love In The City, 8 First Dates, and his feature film Me. You. He. She (Volodymyr Zelensky).

Olena was born to Olha Kyiashko also in Kryvyi Rih. Her father's name is unknown. From 1985 to 1995 she went to school at Kryvyi Rih Gymnasium #95, where she ended up meeting Volodymyr. But from 1995 to 2000 she went to Kryvyi Rih Economic Institute, taking a major in Architecture (The speaker of the Ukrainian Women's Congress - Olena Zelenska).

Zelensky started taking interest in politics when he starred in the hit show, Servant of the People, which dabbled in political material, and led his way to his announcement of running for president on the 2018-19 Evening Kvartal New Year's Eve show. The way Zelensky campaigned was not the normal way, he went touring with his comedy troupe and posted personal videos while promoting his anti-corruption platform. On the other side, Petro Poroshenko was gaining both positive and negative attention. The way Poroshenko campaigned was mainly on reform and transparency, and he achieved some success by tackling corruption in the public sector. Unfortunately for him it was all for naught, when it was discovered by the public that a trove of confidential documents came from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which showed that the business that Poroshenko said he would sell upon becoming president was instead moved to a holding company, offshore, in the British Virgin Islands. After that was found out his credibility took a rather large hit. On top of that the Ukrainian public were showing large-scale dissatisfaction with Poroshenko’s government, and basically all other establishment politicians (Petro poroshenko).

In March 2019 he ended up on top of 39 other candidates in the first voting round. Luckily for him that event continued when on April 21, 2019 he created a landslide of an election with roughly 70% of the votes, taking the place of Poroshenko, and was sworn in as president on May 20, 2019.

With the Russo-Ukrainian war peaking Zelensky’s capabilities as a leader will start to show, and so far he is doing a good job keeping moral high. He has stayed in the country, even though countries are offering to evacuate him and keep him safe. Instead he has stayed in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. He is taking no action to keep his location hidden as he has stated “I’m staying in Kyiv.” In a video on March 14, that he posted publicly. He also stated “On Bankova Street, to be precise. I’m not going to hide. And I have no fear of anybody or anything. Whatever it takes to win this Patriotic War of ours, we will do it (Goshwami et al.).”

Russia’s intentions are fairly unclear, with Putin saying that they would erase the “nazification” in Ukraine, but what doesn’t make sense is that president Zelensky is Jewish. Other people say it’s to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. Putin also claims that the attack is meant to defend the Russian speakers in Ukraine, mainly those of Donetsk and Luhansk, which declared independence from Ukraine, with Donetsk declaring independence on April 7, 2014 as the Donetsk People’s Republic, and Luhansk declared independence on April 27, 2014 as the Luhansk People’s Republic. While Ukraine regards these two areas as terrorist organisations, Russia recognised both of them as countries on February 21, 2022. 

Russian president Vladimir Putin first in 2012, against four other candidates. With the most prominent among them being Gennady Zyuganov, who managed to get 12,318,353 votes, or 17.38%. Unfortunately for Zyugabov, Putin won with a landslide, having almost 46,000,000 votes, or 64.35%. On March 4, 2012, Vladimir Putin was sworn into office as the 3rd president of the Russian Federation.

On October 1, 1952, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Putin was born as an only child to Vladimir S. Putin, and Maria Shelomova. He got married to Lyudmila Ocheretnaya in 1983, but divorced him in 2014 (Goshwami et al.). They had two daughters together, the oldest is Maria Putina, who was born on April 28, 1985, and the youngest is Katerina Tikhonova, who was born on August 31, 1986 (Goshwami et al.).