
Zelenskyy’s unlikely journey, from comedy to wartime leader
Associated PressWARSAW, Poland — When Volodymyr Zelenskyy was growing up in southeastern Ukraine, his Jewish family spoke Russian and his father once forbade the younger Zelenskyy from going abroad to study in Israel. Upon graduation, he found a new home in movie acting and comedy — rocketing in the 2010s to become one of Ukraine’s top entertainers with the TV series “Servant of the People.” In it, he portrayed a lovable high school teacher fed up with corrupt politicians who accidentally becomes president. In spite of Ukraine’s dark history of antisemitism, reaching back centuries to Cossack pogroms and the collaboration of some anti-Soviet nationalists with Nazi genocide during World War II, Ukraine after Zelenskyy’s election in 2019 became the only country outside of Israel with both a president and prime minister who were Jewish. Putin justified the attack by saying it was to defend two breakaway districts in eastern Ukraine from “genocide.” With Russian media presenting such a picture of his country, Zelenskyy recorded a message to Russians to refute the notion that Ukraine is the aggressor and that he is any kind of warmonger: “They told you I ordered an offensive on the Donbas, to shoot, to bomb, that there’s no question about it. In the runup to the Russian invasion, Zelenskyy was critical of President Joe Biden’s open and detailed warnings about Putin’s intentions, saying they were premature and could cause panic.
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