Who is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy?

A former actor, comedian and voiceover artist, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has emboldened his country amid a Russian invasion and left historians and global affairs experts struggling to find a comparison.

Before being elected, Zelenskyy was best known for his starring role in a TV series titled “Servant of the People,” where he played a high school teacher fed up with corrupt politicians, who accidentally becomes president.

Life imitated art when in 2019, Zelenskyy was elected president of Ukraine with an overwhelming majority of 73 per cent.

The 44-year-old father and husband used social media during his presidential campaign to catapult him into office and he’s now using it to win over the hearts and minds of global citizens and world leaders.

He’s also using this platform to battle misinformation related to the Russian attack.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin has peddled accusations of Nazi elements within Ukraine to justify the attack, in a video, Zelenskyy was quick to point out that he’s Jewish and lost three family members in the Holocaust.

When there were reports he’d fled the country, a video was posted of him and other Ukrainian officials in the streets in the Kyiv.

Eastern Europe expert Robert Austin said he can’t think of another figure in history “in this century or any century who’s made such an incredible transition.”

At times in the runup to the Russian invasion, the comedian-turned-statesman had seemed inconsistent, berating the West for fearmongering one day, and for not doing enough the next. But his bravery and refusal to leave as rockets have rained down on the capital have also made him an unlikely hero to many around the world.

“I was reading a piece just last week in the New York Times that came ahead of this fiasco. It was really a hatchet job on Zelenskyy as not being up to the task but, all of a sudden when I think about it now, I think maybe that journalist would write that article all over again,” said Austin, who is associate director of the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto.

After the United States government offered to evacuate Zelenskyy, he was praised for his response.

“The Americans had told him initially that the Russians are out to get you, which they are, and that it would be safer if he relocated to the west of the country from Kyiv for his own personal safety. He replied, ‘I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition,’” explained U of T professor Andres Kasekamp.

At least 102 civilians have been killed and hundreds have been left wounded as of Feb. 27, four days after Russia’s invasion, according to United Nations’ human rights chief. The UN adding that number is believed to be a vast undercount.

Military observers have said Russia’s chief objective has been to reach the capital to depose Zelenskyy and his government and install someone more compliant to Putin.

Zelenskyy’s actions have prompted some to draw comparisons to one of the most revered wartime leaders in modern European history, former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.

The leader even drawing comparisons to the most revered wartime leader in modern European history, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

“[The comparisons] are absolutely warranted and in fact, Zelenskyy is, at this moment, at much greater personal danger than Winston Churchill ever was,” added Kasekamp.

“I think we all have something in this conflict and that’s why we do need to stand with Ukraine in this case and we need to put aside some of the shortcomings that were evident,” said Austin, who is also an expert on Russia-Ukraine relations.

How Zelenskyy fares against Russia in the coming days, according to scholars, will impact each of us in Canada.

“The Russian president has decided that international boundaries don’t matter. He’s essentially tried to wipe out the lives of 44-million people, careers, lives and so on,” explained Austin. “When I see borders like that questioned in such an arbitrary, manipulative and totally false way, this really gets me going. And Canadians need to think about that because we know where this leads. It doesn’t lead to a good place. It leads to utter catastrophe.”

Western nations, including Canada, have ramped up the pressure with a freeze on Russia’s hard currency reserves, threatening to bring Russia’s economy to its knees, on top of the sanctions brought against Putin and other Russian elites.

The sports world has also begun to punish Russia for the attack on Ukraine with FIFA suspending Russia from international soccer competitions and International Ice Hockey Federation has also banned Russia and Belarus until further notice.

With files from Meredith Bond