Ukraine TV star takes office, this time for real
KIEV, Ukraine — Volodymyr Zelensky, a television comedian turned populist firebrand, took office as Ukraine’s president Monday and immediately began to do battle with the political establishment.
Speaking to members of Parliament in his inaugural address, Zelensky demanded that they approve the removal of top security officials and lift their right to immunity from prosecution — all before he planned to dissolve the body and call early elections.
And, channeling the morally upright schoolteacher-turned-president he played on a popular TV show, “Servant of the People,” Zelensky portrayed himself as a more down-toearth leader than his predecessors.
“I really want you not to hang my image in your offices,” Zelensky said. “Hang photos of your children there, and before every decision, look them in the eye.”
Many members of the country’s political and economic elite, however, are poised to test the depth of public support for Zelensky as parliamentary elections loom. And his commitment to the anti-corruption agenda he espoused as a candidate remains to be seen.
More broadly, Zelensky, an entertainer who hadn’t held elected office, faces the daunting task of navigating both European geopolitics and U.S. domestic politics. A five-year-old war with Russian-backed separatists still simmers in eastern Ukraine, and Russia continues to control the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
While the United States has backed Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, allies of U.S. President Donald Trump have lashed out at Zelensky in recent weeks. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, has urged Ukrainian authorities to investigate the activities of former Vice President Joe Biden in Ukraine. There is no evidence of improper conduct by Biden.
Zelensky’s team, however, has hesitated to get involved in what some advisers view as a U.S. domestic political battle. Giuliani referred to those Zelensky advisers as “enemies” of Trump in a Twitter post Saturday.
Zelensky, who won with close to 75% of the vote over incumbent Petro Poroshenko, took the oath of office during a ceremony in Parliament, in front of an audience that included U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
He called on Parliament to remove the head of the security services, the defense minister and the prosecutor general from their posts.
Zelensky said ending the war in eastern Ukraine was his top priority, though he insisted he would not give up any territory to do so. He said that he was ready “for dialogue” — presumably with Russia — but that Moscow needed to return imprisoned Ukrainians.
“So that our heroes don’t die anymore, I’m ready to do anything,” he said in his inaugural speech. “I’m ready to lose my ratings, my popularity, my post for peace to come — without losing our territories.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin pointedly did not congratulate Zelensky on Monday and gave no sign he was ready to compromise. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Crimea was “a region of Russia” and that the war in eastern Ukraine was for Kiev to solve.
“President Putin will congratulate Zelensky with his first successes in resolving the internal conflict in southeastern Ukraine, as well as with his first successes in normalizing Russian-Ukrainian relations,” Peskov told reporters.