Zelenskyy's rise in Ukraine, from TV star to president. Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any videos: http://goo.gl/0bsAjO Once known for his political comedy sketches and skits where he pretended to play the piano with his penis, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected as the president of Ukraine in 2019 in a landslide victory. Although he promised that his presidency would be different from other Ukrainian leaders who “promise a lot” yet “do nothing,” President Zelenskyy would soon find himself unpopular with the public. Within two years, he had already navigated scandals like his offshore companies appearing in the Pandora Papers and struggled to fulfill his campaign pledge to end the war against Russia in the Donbas region of Ukraine. But the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, found him extremely well-positioned to offer his skills in performance and storytelling to motivate Ukrainians, rally Europe, and undermine Putin’s propaganda. How will his reaction to Russia’s advances affect his legacy? We chose 8 clips that we feel explain President Zelenskyy’s rise from a comedian to the leader of Ukraine and had journalists and experts respond. Further reading: Simon Shuster, reporter at Time Magazine, interviewed in the video above, wrote a profile on President Zelenskyy: https://time.com/6154139/volodymyr-zelensky-ukraine-profile-russia/ For more information on how social media shaped Zelenskyy’s victory in Ukraine, check out this piece by Maryana Drach: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-08/RISJ_Final%20Report_Maryana%20Drach_2020_Final%202%20%289%29.pdf Mykhailo Minakov, expert at the Wilson Center, and featured in the video above, wrote an analysis on Zelenskyy’s decline in popularity and the failures of his presidency https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/just-all-others-end-zelensky-alternative How Zelenskyy downplayed the war in January: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/28/ukrainian-president-downplays-imminent-invasion-00003219 Listen to this episode of Vox's podcast Today, Explained on Zelenskyy: https://open.spotify.com/episode/05EqniD8MPKNGaBSf9LXSw?si=d4e50a3662d74e96 Understand Putin’s war on Ukraine, explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVu8QbxafJE Stay up to date on our reporting of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, here: https://bit.ly/3sSEJwT Make sure you never miss behind the scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com/ Support Vox's reporting with a one-time or recurring contribution: http://vox.com/contribute-now Shop the Vox merch store: http://vox.com/store Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on Facebook: http://facebook.com/vox Follow Vox on Twitter: http://twitter.com/voxdotcom Follow Vox on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@voxdotcom