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Volodymyr Zelenskyy: The Ukrainian president who landed on Trump's bad side

The comedian-turned-wartime president became an international celebrity after Russia's invasion when most of the world stood by his side. But things look very different today with Trump in office.

Al Majalla

Volodymyr Zelenskyy: The Ukrainian president who landed on Trump's bad side

Con Coughlin
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When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travels to Saudi Arabia for talks with US officials later this week, he will be aiming to ease the tensions between Kyiv and Washington that have resulted in the Trump administration suspending all aid and intelligence support for Ukraine’s war effort with Russia.

After his ejection from the Oval Office following his disastrous meeting with US President Donald Trump, Zelenskyy has sought to repair relations by writing a personal letter to Trump in which he called the episode “regrettable”, and said that he looked to the American leader for a peace deal under his “strong leadership”.

The initial signals from Washington suggest Zelenskyy’s attempt to move on from the unfortunate bust up has hit the right note at the White House, with Trump—who had accused the Ukrainian leader of not being serious about ending the war in Ukraine—saying he “appreciates” Zelenskyy’s overture.

Trump revealed he had received Zelenskyy’s letter during his speech to Congress, in which he set out his administration’s main achievements during his first weeks back in the White House. He said the letter stated that Zelenskyy was willing to "come to the negotiating table" to strike a peace deal in Ukraine.

"I appreciate that he sent this letter," Trump said in his address, which he described as an “important letter”. Zelenskyy wrote to Trump after posting on social media that he was ready to work under Trump's "strong leadership" to achieve a lasting peace.

His response followed intense lobbying by European leaders, such as UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, that it was in Ukraine’s interests to repair relations with Washington quickly.

The letter reads "Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a peace that lasts," Trump read out to Congress.

Trump also said that Zelenskyy was ready to sign a rare earth minerals deal that had been on the table before his bust up with Trump at the White House.

Further details of Trump’s willingness to scale down his confrontation with Ukraine emerged following a meeting between UK defence secretary John Healey and his American counterpart, Pete Hesgeth, who said that Trump was “very encouraged” by Zelenskyy’s response.

CIA director John Ratcliffe and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz have both indicated that Zelenskyy’s willingness to sign the minerals deal with the US could lead to the arms and intelligence embargoes being lifted.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, who is coordinating the meeting between Zelenskyy and US officials in Saudi Arabia, said, “There is a path back, and President Zelenskyy has demonstrated that he is intent on that good faith path back.” Zelenskyy is due to fly to Saudi Arabia tomorrow (10 March) before holding talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Ukrainian president's peace overtures were also present when he attended an emergency summit of European leaders in Brussels, when he suggested that Russia could release prisoners of war as a way to “establish basic trust”. This could lead to the first stage of a ceasefire that should include “a truce for missiles, bombs, long-range drones – no military operations in the Black Sea”.

'Difficult to deal with'

However, since Trump's address to Congress, the US President told a media gathering in the Oval Office on Friday that he is finding it "more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine" than Russia in attempts to broker peace between the two nations. The US is "doing very well with Russia", and "it may be easier dealing with" Moscow than Kyiv, he said.

Lingering grudge

Zelenskyy’s very public falling out with Trump is not the first time the two leaders have had their disagreements. In September 2019, Zelenskyy found his administration thrust into the centre of a political scandal in the US when a whistleblower in the American intelligence community lodged a formal complaint about Trump's actions.

The complaint concerned Trump’s alleged withholding of a significant military aid package to Ukraine unless it launched an investigation into alleged wrongdoing by former US Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Hunter Biden had served on the board of Ukrainian energy conglomerate Burisma Holdings, and Trump claimed, without evidence, that the elder Biden had used his office to benefit his son.

In April 2019, Biden had announced that he would seek the Democratic presidential nomination to challenge Trump in 2020, and he quickly became the party’s front-runner. Contacts between Trump’s personal lawyer, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, began in earnest soon afterwards, and they predated Zelenskyy’s inauguration.

These discussions initially focused on claims involving the 2016 US presidential election and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, but they soon expanded to include Biden.

Zelenskyy’s transition team declined a request to meet with Giuliani over what they saw as a matter of internal US politics, but Trump continued to pursue the allegations. In a phone call with Zelenskyy on 25 July 2019, Trump discussed an investigation of the Biden family. Zelenskyy stated that he would look into the Burisma matter and sacked Lutsenko in August.

At that time, nearly $400mn in US military aid to Ukraine remained in limbo despite the bipartisan authorisation of the US Congress. Those funds were finally released on 11 September 2019, but, by that point, American lawmakers had begun to push for more information regarding Trump and the details of his call with Zelenskyy.

That call—and Trump’s alleged attempt to pressure Zelenskyy—eventually served as the basis for a US House of Representatives impeachment inquiry that was launched on 24 September 2019. Trump was convicted by the House but ultimately acquitted by the Senate, and he responded by purging those officials whom he considered disloyal.

Trump's appetite for vengeance is well-evidenced, and the contentious relationship he had with Zelenskyy over the Hunter Biden affair is said to have contributed to his rough handling of the Ukrainian leader when he visited the Oval Office—a setback that Zelenskyy is now trying hard to overcome.

Trump's grudge against Zelenskyy over the Hunter Biden affair was evident in the heated Oval Office exchange

Early life and career

Born 25 January 1978, in Kryvyy Rih, Ukraine in what was then still part of the Soviet Union, Zelenskyy was first elected president of Ukraine in 2019. Although he was a relative political novice, his anti-corruption platform won him widespread support, and his significant online following translated into a solid electoral base. He won a landslide victory over incumbent Petro Poroshenko in the second round of the 2019 presidential election. 

Born to Jewish parents, like many people from Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, he grew up as a native Russian speaker, but also acquired fluency in both Ukrainian and English. In 1995, he entered Kryvyy Rih Economic Institute, the local campus of Kyiv National Economic University, and in 2000 he graduated with a law degree. Although Zelenskyy was licensed to practice law, his career was already headed in a different direction.

While still a student, he became active in theatre, which would become his primary focus during his early adulthood. His entertainment career, however, was soon eclipsed by the seismic events rocking Ukraine's political landscape.

In February 2014, the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled after months of popular protests, and that May, billionaire Petro Poroshenko was elected president of Ukraine. With a Russian-backed insurgency raging in eastern Ukraine and endemic corruption undermining public confidence in government, Poroshenko struggled to enact even modest reforms. 

With the Ukrainian economy stalling and Poroshenko's approval rating reaching single digits, it seemed likely that the 2019 presidential election would repeat the 2014 contest, with the incumbent facing Orange Revolution veteran Yulia Tymoshenko. Instead, more than three dozen candidates entered the race, and Zelenskyy emerged as one of the front-runners virtually from the moment of the declaration of his candidacy.

He conducted an unorthodox campaign strategy, eschewing detailed policy statements and press conferences in favour of short speeches or comedy routines posted to YouTube and Instagram. On 31 March 2019, Zelenskyy won over 30% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election.

On 21 April, Zelenskyy was elected president of Ukraine with an impressive 73% of the vote. Within days the president-elect faced his first foreign policy challenge, when Putin announced his decision to offer Russian passports to the Ukrainian citizens in separatist-controlled areas of war-torn eastern Ukraine.

AFP / Sergei SUPINSKY
Ukrainian comedian and presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskyy makes the V for victory sign during a presidential election debate with the incumbent Ukrainian president at Kyiv's Olympic Stadium on April 19, 2019.

The Russian-backed hybrid war was by then entering its fifth year, with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians being displaced by the conflict. Zelenskyy ridiculed the offer, responding with a Facebook post that extended Ukrainian citizenship to Russians and others "who suffer from authoritarian or corrupt regimes."

On 20 May 2019, Zelenskyy was sworn in as president. Snap elections were held on 21 July, and Zelenskyy won an absolute majority, capturing 254 of 450 seats. The result marked the first time in Ukraine's post-Soviet history that a single party could command absolute control over the legislative agenda.

In late 2021, Russia began a massive buildup of troops along its border with Ukraine. Additional Russian forces were sent to Belarus—ostensibly for joint exercises with that country's military—and a sizable Russian naval flotilla was assembled in the Black Sea. Western intelligence agencies stated that the moves were a clear precursor to an invasion, but Putin denied any such intent.

Western leaders carried on negotiations with both Putin and Zelenskyy in an effort to prevent the bloodshed that appeared inevitable, but Russia's military preparations continued. On 24 February, Zelenskyy delivered a televised plea for peace directly to the Russian people.

Shortly thereafter, at about 6:00 am Moscow time, Putin announced the beginning of a "special military operation," and Russian cruise missiles began to fire on targets in Ukraine.  The Russian invasion of Ukraine drew condemnation from leaders around the world.

Since then Zelenskyy has become one of the world's most high-profile war leaders, rallying support for the Ukrainian cause from a variety of world leaders in his efforts to prevent his country being overrun by the Russians.

His commitment to the Ukrainian cause even resulted in him being named Time magazine's Person of the Year in December 2022, a decision that the magazine's editor claimed was "the most clear-cut in memory."

But after three years of gruelling warfare, and after his recent bruising encounter with Trump, it must feel like a lifetime ago that Ukraine's energetic leader enjoyed Washington's warm embrace.

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Related topics Ukraine War Volodymyr Zelensky
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