# Volodymyr Zelensky President of Ukraine since May 2019. Former actor, comedian, and producer who founded Studio Kvartal 95 and starred in the Ukrainian political comedy series *Servant of the People* (2015–2019), in which he played a schoolteacher who unexpectedly becomes president. Won the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election as an outsider candidate on an anti-corruption platform with 73% of the runoff vote. ## The Trump call and the first impeachment Zelensky was on the receiving end of [[Donald Trump - do us a favor though]] in which Trump conditioned the release of $391 million in congressionally appropriated U.S. military aid on a public Ukrainian announcement of investigations into [[Joe Biden]] and the Kremlin-aligned [[QAnon]]/"server" conspiracy theory. The call, transcribed by Situation Room officers, was the operative conduct at the heart of the [[Trump First Impeachment]] (Article I — Abuse of Power). Zelensky did not announce the requested investigations. The aid was eventually released in September 2019 after the hold became politically untenable. Zelensky maintained throughout the impeachment process that he had not felt pressured — a posture forced by the asymmetric power relationship between a Ukrainian president and a U.S. president whose support Ukraine needed. ## Russia's full-scale invasion (Feb 2022 – present) On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Zelensky's wartime leadership — he refused U.S. evacuation offers ("I need ammunition, not a ride") and remained in Kyiv — substantially elevated his international profile. The war contextualizes Trump's 2019 aid hold in retrospect: military assistance Trump had withheld for personal political benefit was the same type of assistance Ukraine would soon need at scale. ## Trump's second term Zelensky's relationship with the second Trump administration has been adversarial, marked by U.S. policy shifts toward Russia and a contentious February 2025 Oval Office meeting. The structural pattern of [[Russia]] alignment in Trump's foreign policy has continued to shape U.S.–Ukraine relations through 2026. ### October 2026 — Trump turns on Zelensky in public The pattern broke into the open over three days in October 2026. - **September 18, 2026** — Trump signed the [[Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026]], the largest Russia sanctions statute since [[CAATSA]]. - **October 9, 2026** — Three weeks later, Trump announced a deal with [[Vladimir Putin]] opening global markets to Russian diesel, using the new statute's licensing machinery to do the opposite of what its sponsors intended. Zelensky called the move "a weak decision by our strong partners." The same day, the administration sanctioned the [[International Criminal Court]] itself — the body that has indicted Putin for war crimes. - **October 10, 2026** — Asked at the White House whether the diesel relief would fund Russia's war, Trump blamed Zelensky instead: Zelensky "could have settled this war many times, many many times, and he chooses not to," and "wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel." Trump said Ukraine had been told it could strike anything in Russia except oil refineries, and warned, "So he better damn well stop" (see [[Donald Trump - He better damn well stop]]). Asked about Ukrainian suffering, he said, "I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal," adding, "I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president." Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha replied that Zelensky has the support of the Ukrainian people and that Ukrainians have the right to decide who leads them. The following day a Russian daytime missile and drone attack hit Kyiv's power grid. The refinery demand is the operative detail: Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries are the one campaign that has measurably cut Russian war revenue as Moscow evades sanctions through its [[Dark Fleet]]. The diesel chokepoint Trump attributed to those strikes is in fact the [[Strait of Hormuz]], largely closed by the U.S. war on Iran. Trump issued no comparable warning to Russia over its strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. A call to replace a sitting allied head of state restates in public the premise of the [[Mariupol Plan]] — that the obstacle to peace is the Ukrainian president rather than the Russian one. ## Related - [[Donald Trump - do us a favor though]] - [[Donald Trump - He better damn well stop]] - [[Trump First Impeachment]] - [[Trump Impeachments Timeline]] - [[Russo-Ukrainian War]] - [[Mariupol Plan]] - [[Russia]]