Volodymyr Zelenskyy

by
2022

Contents

  • 1Early life
  • 2Entertainment career
  • 32019 presidential campaign
  • 4Presidency
    • 4.1Cabinets and administration
      • 4.1.1Honcharuk government
      • 4.1.2Shmyhal government
    • 4.2Attempts to end the Donbas conflict
    • 4.3UIA Flight 752
    • 4.4Foreign relations
    • 4.52021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis
    • 4.62022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
      • 4.6.1First phase: Invasion of Ukraine (24 February – 7 April)
      • 4.6.2Second phase: South-Eastern front (8 April – 5 September)
      • 4.6.3Third phase: Counteroffensives and annexations (6 September – present)
  • 5Political stances
    • 5.1Economic issues
    • 5.2Foreign policy
    • Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit US; first known trip outside Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began

Early life

On January 25, 1978, in Kryvyi Rih, then in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy was born to Jewish parents. At the Kryvyi Rih State University of Economics and Technology, his mother Rymma Zelenska was a former engineer, while his father, Oleksandr Zelenskyy, is a professor, computer scientist, and chairman of the Department of Cybernetics and Computing Hardware. In the Red Army’s 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division during World War II, his grandpa, Semyon (Simon) Ivanovych Zelenskyy, served as an infantryman and rose to the rank of colonel; In the Holocaust, Semyon’s father and three brothers perished. Zelenskyy said that his great-grandparents perished in March 2022 after German troops destroyed their house during a battle.

Zelenskyy resided in Erdenet, a city in Mongolia, for four years prior to beginning elementary school, where his father had a job. Zelenskyy spoke Russian growing up. He obtained a scholarship to study in Israel at the age of 16 after passing the Test of English as a Foreign Language, but his father forbade him from going. He later graduated from the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics, which was formerly a division of the Kyiv National Economic University and is now a component of the Kryvyi Rih National University, with a law degree, but he never worked in the legal profession.

Entertainment career

At the age of 17, he joined his community’s KVN comedy competition squad. The United Ukrainian team “Zaporizhia-Kryvyi Rih-Transit,” which competed in the KVN Major League and ultimately won in 1997, promptly requested him to join them. He founded and oversaw the Kvartal 95 team in the same year, which ultimately became the comedy group Kvartal 95. The members of Kvartal 95 spent a lot of time in Moscow and frequently visited post-Soviet nations while playing in the Major League and the top open Ukrainian league of KVN from 1998 to 2003. Kvartal 95 began creating TV shows in 2003 for Ukrainian TV channel 1+1. In 2005, the group relocated to Inter, another Ukrainian TV channel.

He appeared in Love in the Big City, a 2008 motion picture, and Love in the Big City 2, its follow-up. Zelenskyy maintained his acting career in the movies with the releases of Office Romance (2011), Our Time (2012), and Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon (2013). Love in the Big City 3 was made available in January 2014. Zelenskyy also starred in the 2015 and 2016 sequels of the 2012 movie 8 First Dates as well as each of those films’ principal roles. [20] He recorded Paddington Bear’s voice for Paddington (2014) and Paddington 2’s Ukrainian dub (2017).

2009 in Prague for Zelenskyy
From 2010 until 2012, Zelenskyy served as the board member and general producer of the TV network Inter.

Zelenskyy spoke out in August 2014 in opposition to the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture’s plan to expel Russian performers from Ukraine. The entry of Russian artists and other Russian cultural products into Ukraine has been prohibited since 2015. The love movie Love in the Big City 2 with Zelenskyy was outlawed in Ukraine in 2018.

After the Ukrainian media had reported that during the Russo-Ukrainian War Zelenskyy’s Kvartal 95 had donated ₴1 million to the Ukrainian army, some Russian politicians and artists petitioned for a ban on his works in Russia. Once again, Zelenskyy spoke out against the intention of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture to ban Russian artists from Ukraine.

In 2015, Zelenskyy became the star of the television series Servant of the People, where he played the role of the president of Ukraine.[34] In the series, Zelenskyy’s character was a high-school history teacher in his 30s who won the presidential election after a viral video showed him ranting against government corruption in Ukraine.

The comedy series Svaty (“In-laws”), in which Zelenskyy appeared, was banned in Ukraine in 2017. but unbanned in March 2019.

Zelenskyy worked mostly in Russian-language productions. His first role in the Ukrainian language was the romantic comedy I, You, He, She. which appeared on the screens of Ukraine in December 2018. The first version of the script was written in Ukrainian but was translated into Russian for the Lithuanian actress Agnė Grudytė. Later, the movie was dubbed into Ukrainian.

The October 2021 Pandora Papers made known that Zelenskyy and Ivan Bakanov, his top adviser and the head of the Ukrainian Security Service, had a network of offshore businesses in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, and Belize. These businesses included a few that owned pricey London real estate. The two men appear to have worked out a deal for Zelenskyy’s family to continue getting money from these companies after Zelenskyy transferred his shares in a significant offshore company to Sergei Shafir around the time of his 2019 election. Vows to reform Ukraine’s government were at the heart of Zelenskyy’s election campaign.

2019 presidential campaign

Servant of the People, the name of the television show that Zelenskyy had appeared in for the previous three years, was registered as a new political party in March 2018 by members of Zelenskyy’s production business Kvartal 95. Despite Zelenskyy’s denials that he had any immediate plans to run for office and his explanation that he had just registered the party name to prevent others from using it, there was widespread suspicion that he was going to do so. He was a front-runner in polls as early as October 2018, which was three months before he announced his candidacy and six months before the presidential election. Zelenskyy declared his intention to run for president of Ukraine on January 1st after making unclear statements for several months. The election is less than four months away.

The presidential campaign of Zelenskyy against Poroshenko was largely conducted online. He did not publish a comprehensive policy platform and engaged with the media only sparingly. Instead, he used social media platforms and YouTube videos to communicate with voters. Instead of holding conventional campaign rallies, he and his production firm Kvartal 95 performed stand-up comedy performances all around Ukraine. Although he wasn’t typically labeled as a populist, he positioned himself as an anti-establishment, anti-corruption person. In addition to wanting to “alter the atmosphere and tenor of the political establishment,” he said he also wanted to “bring professional, decent people to power” and restore people’s faith in politicians. Ukrainian news outlets urged Zelenskyy to “stop avoiding journalists” on April 16, 2019, a few days before the election. Zelenskyy affirmed.

Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former finance minister, and other members of Zelenskyy’s team were presented prior to the elections. His ties to the oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi were a source of controversy during the campaign. Zelenskyy’s victory would be advantageous for Russia, according to President Poroshenko and his allies. The 2019 presidential debates took place as a show on April 19 at the Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex. Zelenskyy confessed in his introduction that he voted for Poroshenko in 2014, but “I was off base. We made a mistake. We chose one Poroshenko, but got another. When there are cameras around, the first one shows up, and Petro transmits Medvedchuk privietiki (greetings) to Moscow “. Zelenskyy initially declared he would only hold office for one term, but in May, he changed his mind.

According to Zelenskyy, he would “restart the legal system” and instill confidence in the government” in order to grow the economy and draw investment to Ukraine. Additionally, he suggested a tax amnesty for large corporations as well as a flat tax of 5% that may be increased “in consultation with them and if everyone agrees.”Zelenskyy claims that if people saw that his new administration “worked honestly from the first day,” they would begin paying taxes.

On March 31, 2019, Zelenskyy unquestionably won the first round of voting. On April 21, 2019, in the second round, he earned 73% of the vote to Poroshenko’s 25%, becoming the president of Ukraine. One of the first European leaders to congratulate Zelenskyy was the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda On April 12, 2019, Zelenskyy was welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, congratulated Zelenskyy on his triumph over the phone on April 22. Presidents of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker and the European Council Donald Tusk also sent a letter of congratulations and pledged that the European Union (EU) would work to hasten the implementation of the remaining provisions of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine.

Presidency

Zelenskyy took office on May 20, 2019. Salome Zourabichvili (Georgia), Kersti Kaljulaid (Estonia), Raimonds Vjonis (Latvia), Dalia Grybauskait (Lithuania), János der (Hungary), Maro efovi (European Union), and Rick Perry were among the foreign dignitaries who attended the ceremony in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (United States). With Volodymyr Groysman serving as prime minister and Zelenskyy as president, Ukraine became the first nation outside of Israel to have a Jewish head of state and head of government at the same time. Zelenskyy dissolved the Ukrainian parliament at the time and demanded early legislative elections in his inauguration speech (which had originally been due to be held in October of that year). The People’s Front, one of Zelenskyy’s coalition allies, objected to the change and left the governing alliance.

Zelenskyy reinstated Mikheil Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship on May 28.

The Ukrainian parliament flatly rejected Zelenskyy’s first significant suggestion to switch the electoral system from a plurality voting system to proportional representation with closed party lists because it was of the opinion that closed lists would encourage more corruption in the executive branch.

Additionally, on June 6, parliamentarians rejected Zelenskyy’s crucial proposal to reinstate criminal punishment for unlawful enrichment and substituted a similar bill put forth by a group of deputies. The president’s third major plan, which aims to remove immunity from MPs, ambassadors, and judges, was set to be submitted after the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, it was revealed in June 2019. On September 3, the new parliament passed a measure removing legislators’ legal immunity, giving Zelenskyy a legislative triumph and making good on one of his major campaign promises.

Zelenskyy issued an order on July 8 to cancel the traditional Independence Day Parade on Maidan Nezalezhnosti due to expenses. Zelenskyy emphasized that the day would “celebrate heroes” on July 4th, despite the fact that the “format would be new.” He also suggested that veterans be given the money that would have been used to pay for the parade.

Zelenskyy’s party advocated changes to Ukraine’s media legislation in 2020 with the aim of boosting competition and reducing the oligarchs’ monopoly on radio and television stations. Because of the potential for exploitation of the criminal liability for the dissemination of false information clause, critics claimed it ran the risk of growing media censorship in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy traveled to Oman in January 2020, but it wasn’t listed on his official itinerary, giving the impression that it was both a personal vacation and official business. According to Zelenskyy’s office, the entire trip was self-funded. Despite this, he faced criticism for his lack of transparency, and others pointed out that he had previously chastised his predecessor Poroshenko for taking an unauthorized trip to the Maldives.

A measure to update and amend Ukraine’s referendum laws, which the country’s Constitutional Court had ruled illegal in 2018, was approved by parliament in January 2021.

Zelenskyy made the referendum legislation fix one of his campaign pledges.

Zelenskyy proposed a measure to the Verkhovna Rada in June 2021 that would have made a public list of Ukraine’s oligarchs, barred them from taking part in the privatization of state-owned businesses, and prohibited them from giving money to lawmakers. Although they agreed with Zelenskyy’s objective of lessening the influence of oligarchs on Ukrainian politics, opposition party leaders criticized his strategy, claiming that the public register would be both risky because it concentrated power in the hands of the president and ineffective because oligarchs were only a “symbol” of more pervasive corruption. The legislation became law in September 2021. Zelenskyy’s administration has faced criticism for allegedly removing power from the Ukrainian oligarchs in order to consolidate control and advance his own interests.

Cabinets and administration

Andriy Bohdan was chosen by Zelenskyy to lead the Ukrainian Presidential Administration. Bohdan had previously served as Ihor Kolomoyskyi’s legal counsel. Bohdan is not eligible to occupy any governmental offices until 2024 as a result of the Lustration regulations in Ukraine, which were put into place in 2014 after Euromaidan (because of his government post during the Second Azarov Government). Bohdan, however, argued that lustration did not apply to him because running the presidential administration is not regarded as a civil service job. Ivan Bakanov, who was named deputy chief of the Ukrainian Secret Service, was among the individuals Zelenskyy appointed to the Presidential Administration who had previously worked with him at his former production firm, Kvartal 95. Olena Zerkal, a former deputy foreign minister, declined to become the deputy’s head.

Honcharuk government

With 43% of the party-list vote in the parliamentary election of July 21, 2019, Zelenskyy’s political party, Servant of the People, became the first single-party majority in contemporary Ukrainian history. 254 of the 424 seats were won by his party. [114]

Oleksiy Honcharuk was nominated by Zelenskyy as prime minister after the elections, and the parliament swiftly approved his appointment. The positions of Vadym Prystaiko as foreign minister, Andrii Zahorodniuk as defense minister, and Ivan Bakanov as SBU director were also approved by the parliament. With Honcharuk claiming that the relatively inexperienced administration needed experienced administrators and that Avakov had “‘painted red lines’ that cannot be crossed,” the controversial Arsen Avakov was retained as interior minister. On February 11, 2020, Zelenskyy fired Bohdan as the head of his presidential administration and named Andriy Yermak as his replacement.

Shmyhal government

Zelenskyy signed Decree 117/2021 approving the “strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol” in March 2021. His approval ratings had fallen to less than 32 percent by September 2020.

Attempts to end the Donbas conflict

In July 2019, he announced a preliminary deal struck with separatists under which elections would be held in the region in exchange for Russia withdrawing its unmarked troops. Ukrainian President Petro Zelenskyy announced a formal ceasefire with the separatists in July 2020. This was the more than twentieth such attempt since the war began in 2014. Despite this, ceasefire violations in 2020 did decrease by over 50 percent compared to the previous year.

Flight 752 of UIA

Rumors that Ukrainian President Petro Zelenskyy had secret meetings in Oman and a plane crash in Iran on 7 January 2020 were dismissed as baseless conspiracy theories. On 17 January 2020, the presidential appointee Minister of Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystaiko was unable to give answers during the “times of questions to the government” in parliament.

Foreign relations

Ukrainian President Andriy Zelenskyy’s first official trip abroad was to Brussels in June 2019. He met with European Union and NATO officials and promised to lift the moratorium on exhuming Polish mass graves in Ukraine. In September 2019, he visited the United States and met with U.S. presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

2021–2022 

Ukraine-Russian crisis

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia and Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov of backing a plan to overthrow his government in November 2021. In January 2022, he warned that Western nations should abandon their “appeasement” attitude toward Moscow. Ukrainian Zelenskyy recorded an address before the Russian invasion of Donbas on 24 February. In it, he appealed to Russian citizens to pressure their leadership to prevent war. The speech was widely described as “emotional” and “astonishing”.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022

First phase: Invasion of Ukraine (24 February – 7 April)

Ukrainian President Viktor Zelenskyy declared martial law and severed diplomatic relations with Russia on 24 February 2014. Russian missiles struck a number of military targets in Ukraine that day.

More than 90% of Ukrainians backed Zelenskyy’s actions, including more than 90% in western and central Ukraine and more than 80% in regions of eastern and southern Ukraine that speak Russian. 72% of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center expressed confidence in Zelenskyy’s management of international affairs.

Ukrainian Zelenskyy has gained worldwide recognition as the wartime leader of Ukraine during the Russian invasion. He has been described as a national hero or a “global hero” by many commentators, including publications such as The Hill and USA Today. During the invasion, he has reportedly been the target of more than a dozen assassination attempts.We won’t be tolerant. We won’t overlook. Everyone who committed atrocities throughout this war will be punished. We will track down every scumbag who ordered the missiles to be fired at our cities and people. Except for a grave, there is nowhere on earth where you may be alone.

Zelenskyy received the Order of the White Lion, the highest state honour of the Czech Republic, on March 7, 2022 in recognition of “his bravery and valour in the face of Russia’s invasion.”

Zelenskyy has urged direct negotiations with Vladimir Putin of Russia on numerous occasions, saying: “What do you want from me, Lord? Quit our country. Sit down at the negotiation table with me if you don’t want to depart right away. although not as close as Scholz and Macron were, at 30 metres. I’m not a biter.”Putin believed that the Ukrainian people would greet the invading soldiers with “flowers and smiles,” according to Zelenskyy, who claimed to be “99.9% positive” of this.

On March 7, 2022, the Kremlin sought Ukraine’s neutrality, acceptance of Crimea as Russian territory (which it had annexed), and recognition of the self-declared rebel republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as separate states in exchange for terminating the assault. Zelenskyy indicated on March 8 that he would be open to talking about Putin’s requests. Zelenskyy declared that he is open to discussion but “not to submission.” As an alternative to Ukraine joining NATO, he suggested a new collective security arrangement with the United States, Turkey, France, and Germany. Ukrainian claims to the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions will not be abandoned, according to Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party. Zelenskyy, however, stated that Ukraine was contemplating designating the Russian language as a protected minority.

Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister of Poland, met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv on March 15, 2022, together with Petr Fiala, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, and Janez Jana, the prime minister of Slovenia. On March 16, 2022, a deepfake of Zelenskyy pleading with Ukrainian residents to turn themselves in to Russia surfaced online. The attack’s primary objective was mainly regarded to have been unsuccessful. The film is regarded as the first instance of deepfake technology being used in a disinformation campaign on a large scale.

In an effort to isolate Russia, Zelenskyy has launched an effort to mobilise the governments of Western countries. He has delivered a number of speeches before EU legislatures, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the United States, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Romanian Republic, the Netherlands.

On March 23, Zelenskyy issued an appeal for Russians to leave the country in order to prevent their taxes from funding the conflict in Ukraine. Zelenskyy backed the suspension of 11 Russian-affiliated political parties in Ukraine in March 2022, including the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Derzhava, Left Opposition, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Opposition Platform—For Life, Party of Shariy, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Union of Leftists, and Volodymyr Saldo Bloc. Another pro-Russian organisation, the Communist Party of Ukraine, was previously outlawed in 2015 for its backing of the Donbas separatists. Zelenskyy has also advocated for the state of Ukraine to operate a single 24-hour news programme that would combine all TV news outlets.

Second phase: South-Eastern front (8 April – 5 September)

Zelenskyy questioned Germany’s associations with Russia in April 2022. Zelenskyy claimed that up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers were killed every day in the war in eastern Ukraine in May 2022 and that males of conscription age in Ukraine had a duty to stay in their country. When asked about an online petition urging the lifting of a ban on Ukrainian men leaving Ukraine, he made the remark.In February 2022, Zelenskyy issued an order for a general military mobilisation as well as a travel ban for men between the ages of 18 and 60. Early in June 2022, Mykhailo Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s advisor, said that up to 200 Ukrainian soldiers perished in battle each day.

Zelenskyy criticised Henry Kissinger’s suggestions that, in exchange for peace, Ukraine should hand over control of the Crimea and the Donbas to Russia. On May 25, 2022, he declared that Ukraine would not accept peace unless Russia promised to hand over the Crimea and the Donbas to Ukraine. He later clarified, however, that he did not think that all of the territories that Russia has taken since 2014—including Crimea—could be reclaimed through use of force, warning that “if we decide to go that road, we will lose hundreds of thousands of people.”

Zelenskyy charged Turkey with having “double standards” on May 3, 2022 when it welcomed Russian tourists while attempting to mediate between Russia and Ukraine to stop the war.Zelenskyy expressed his satisfaction with China’s decision to abstain from the conflict on May 25, 2022. In August 2022, he asserted that China might exert economic pressure on Putin to put a stop to the conflict, and he added, “I’m confident that without the Chinese market for the Russian Federation, Russia would be feeling utter economic isolation. Limiting trade [with Russia] until the war is ended is something China can do. Zelenskyy claimed that Chinese President Xi Jinping has declined to communicate with him ever since the invasion began.

Zelenskyy questioned on May 30, 2022, “Why can Russia still gain roughly a billion euros a day by selling electricity,” and he attacked EU leaders for being too lenient toward Russia. According to the assessment by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), the EU paid Russia approximately €56 billion for the delivery of fossil fuels in the three months after the commencement of Russia’s invasion.Zelenskyy delivered a videoconference address to African Union (AU) representatives on June 20, 2022. Only four of the leaders of Africa who were invited to the virtual gathering showed up. Zelenskyy’s invitation to address the Mercosur trade bloc at its meeting in Paraguay was denied on July 20, 2022.

Third phase: Counteroffensives and annexations (6 September – present)

In his remarks on the Russian mobilisation of 2022, Zelenskyy urged Russians to resist what he called a “criminal mobilisation,” claiming that “Russian commanders do not care about the lives of Russians — they only need to replenish the empty spaces left” by dead and wounded Russian soldiers. Zelenskyy declared that Ukraine will not hold peace talks with Russia while Putin was president after Putin revealed that Russia had annexed four districts of territory in Ukraine that it had invaded.

Putin’s threats to employ nuclear weapons “may be a reality,” Zelenskyy stated on September 25, 2022. Putin, he continued, “wants to terrorize the entire globe” by enforcing nuclear hostilities. The “world will never forgive” a Russian nuclear strike, he added, and Putin is aware of this. Zelenskyy responded in response to a question about the nature of the connection that Ukrainians and Ukraine would have with Russia after the war “Too many lives were lost and too many people were taken. The society will not pardon them, it continues, and it will be up to our society to decide whether to communicate with them or not, and for how long—for tens of years or longer.”Zelenskyy made his first travel abroad on December 21, 2022, to the United States.

political stances

Economic problems
Zelenskyy never promised to lower communal tariffs, according to Andriy Herus, a representative of the president of Ukraine at the Cabinet of Ministers, who claimed in a mid-June interview with BIHUS info [uk] that Zelenskyy’s campaign video in which he suggested that the price of natural gas in Ukraine could drop by 20-30% or more was actually “half-hinting” and “joking.”
Only one time was the topic of tariffs mentioned in Zelenskyy’s election platform: he promised to “reduce the tariff burden on low-income citizens” with the money obtained from a capital amnesty.

Foreign policy

Zelenskyy stated during his presidential campaign that he was in favour of Ukraine joining NATO and the EU, but that referendums should be held to allow voters to make that decision. The Ukrainian people, he thought, had already decided to “eurointegrate,” at the same time. Ivan Bakanov, a trusted adviser of Zelenskyy, has stated that Zelenskyy’s policy supports and calls for membership referendums in the EU and NATO. In his campaign platform, Zelenskyy stated that Ukrainian membership in NATO is “the choice of the Maidan and the course that is inscribed in the Constitution, in addition to being a tool for boosting our defensive capability.” The programme recommends that Ukraine make applying for NATO membership its primary objective.

In reference to the conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, he commented in favour of Azerbaijan in October 2020. Zelenskyy declared, “Just as Azerbaijan has always supported our territorial integrity and sovereignty, we support Azerbaijan’s as well.”

He submitted an application for Ukraine to join the EU in February 2022.Zelenskyy has made an effort to portray Ukraine as a third party in the political and economic disputes between the US and China. Zelenskyy stated in a January 2021 interview with Axios that he does not see China as a geopolitical danger and that he disagrees with the American claims that it does.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit US; first known trip outside Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will travel to Washington for a meeting with President Joe Biden. This will be his first known journey outside of Ukraine since the start of Russia’s war in February.

After a full-scale invasion that lasted 10 months and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries on both sides of the battle as well as damage for Ukrainian residents, the extremely sensitive tour is taking place.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Tuesday night that Biden is looking forward to the trip and that his speech to Congress will show “the strong, bipartisan support for Ukraine.”

The visit, according to the official, “will highlight the United States’ firm commitment to helping Ukraine for as long as it takes, including via the provision of economic, humanitarian, and military assistance.”

Officials from the US and Ukraine have made it clear they don’t see an immediate end to the war and are geared up for it to last for some time. Biden has emphasised that although the US will provide Ukraine with arms and training, American forces will not take part in the fighting directly.

A senior US administration official claimed that Biden and Zelenskyy first broached the subject of a trip to Washington during their most recent phone discussion on December 11, and that a formal invitation came three days later.

Zelenskyy accepted the invitation on Friday and it was confirmed on Sunday, when the White House began coordinating with House Speaker Pelosi to arrange a congressional address he will also attend.

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