Glossary
The vocabulary of the Zelenskyy story — comedy, elections, and war.
Kvartal 95
The comedy troupe Zelenskyy co-founded in 1997, named for a Kryvyi Rih neighborhood. It grew into Studio Kvartal 95 (2003), a major Ukrainian entertainment producer, with Zelenskyy as frontman, writer, and producer.
Servant of the People (TV series)
The 2015–2019 1+1 sitcom starring Zelenskyy as Vasyl Holoborodko, a teacher elected president. Three seasons; the show’s premise became the template for his real campaign.
Servant of the People (party)
The political party registered in 2018 under the show’s name. It won 254 of 450 seats in the July 2019 snap parliamentary election — the first single-party majority in modern Ukrainian parliamentary history.
Verkhovna Rada
Ukraine’s unicameral parliament (450 seats). Zelenskyy dissolved it in his 20 May 2019 inaugural address, triggering the snap election his party won.
KVN
Klub Vesyolykh i Nakhodchivykh (“Club of the Funny and Inventive”) — the Soviet-origin televised comedy competition where Zelenskyy began performing as a student.
Normandy Format
The four-party diplomatic grouping — Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany — created in 2014 to negotiate an end to the Donbas war. Zelenskyy met Putin, Macron, and Merkel in this format in Paris on 9 December 2019.
Minsk agreements
The 2014 and 2015 ceasefire agreements for eastern Ukraine, negotiated in the Normandy Format. Implementation stalled; Zelenskyy entered office pledging to revive the process, without success before the 2022 invasion.
Budapest Memorandum
The 1994 agreement in which Ukraine gave up its Soviet-inherited nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Zelenskyy invoked it at the Munich Security Conference on 19 February 2022.
Euromaidan
The 2013–2014 protest movement in Kyiv that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. It preceded the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas war — the backdrop against which Zelenskyy’s political generation came of age.
Annexation of Crimea (2014)
Russia’s 2014 seizure and claimed annexation of Crimea, condemned by Ukraine and most of the international community. Zelenskyy’s presidency began with Crimea already under Russian control.
Donbas
The eastern Ukrainian region where Russia-backed separatists seized territory in 2014. Ending that war was Zelenskyy’s central 2019 campaign promise.
Martial law
The legal regime Zelenskyy declared on 24 February 2022, extended repeatedly by parliamentary vote since. Under Ukrainian law, martial law suspends national elections — which is why no presidential or parliamentary vote has been held since.
General mobilization
The mass call-up declared alongside martial law in February 2022, repeatedly extended. A 2024 mobilization law lowered the draft age and tightened enforcement.
Bankova
Bankova Street in Kyiv, site of the Office of the President. Zelenskyy’s 26 February 2022 “We are here” video was filmed there, making the street address a symbol of wartime resolve.
Office of the President
The presidential administration, headed since February 2020 by Andriy Yermak. It — rather than a separate prime-ministerial apparatus — has been the visible center of wartime decision-making.
United24
The government fundraising platform launched in May 2022 to collect donations for defense, humanitarian, and reconstruction needs, with high-profile international ambassadors.
Peace Formula
Zelenskyy’s 10-point plan to end the war, presented at the November 2022 G20 summit: radiation and nuclear safety, food security, energy security, release of prisoners and deportees, the UN Charter and territorial integrity, withdrawal of Russian troops, justice, ecocide prevention, security guarantees, and confirmation of the war’s end. See Peace Formula.
Ramstein format
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group of allied defense ministers, convened from April 2022 at Ramstein Air Base, coordinating military aid to Ukraine.
Victory Plan
The five-point plan Zelenskyy presented to the Verkhovna Rada on 16 October 2024 — covering NATO invitation, defense, deterrence, economic partnership, and post-war security architecture.
Diia
Ukraine’s digital-government app (“Diia” means “action”), expanded under Zelenskyy’s pre-war digitalization drive and continued during the war for services, documents, and aid applications.
Oligarch
The term for Ukraine’s post-Soviet business magnates with major media and political influence. Zelenskyy’s 2021 de-oligarchization law created a legal register of oligarchs and restricted their political activity — a flagship pre-war reform.
De-oligarchization law
The September 2021 law establishing criteria for oligarch status and barring registered oligarchs from funding parties or holding certain roles. Its implementation was overtaken by the war.
Source notes
- Institutional definitions: Verkhovna Rada records; Ukrainian presidency; EU and UN documents.
- Peace Formula points: G20 Bali address transcript, 15 November 2022.
- Victory Plan: Verkhovna Rada address, 16 October 2024.
- Martial law provisions: Law of Ukraine “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law.”
- Photograph: Zelenskyy in Kyiv during the war (Ukrainian presidency, CC BY 4.0); see sources.