Zelensky’s unlikely journey from comedian to Ukrainian hero

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky (AP)

Volodymyr Zelensky has made an unlikely journey from being a TV satirist and comedian to the president of Ukraine – and now, a national hero, as his country faces invasion from Russia.

When Mr Zelensky was growing up in south-eastern Ukraine, his Jewish family spoke Russian and his father once forbade the younger Zelensky from going abroad to study in Israel.