Wednesday’s visit follows years of advocacy, one impeachment and one war.
Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine on April 21, 2019. He defeated incumbent president Petro Poroshenko by a wide margin, a function both of questions about Poroshenko’s ethics and Zelensky’s popularity as an actor on television.
That same day, Zelensky took a congratulatory call from the president of the United States. His desired outcome was obvious, asking his U.S. counterpart multiple times to attend his upcoming inauguration.
“We in Ukraine are an independent country and independent Ukraine,” Zelensky said — an unsubtle reminder of the existing conflict with Russia. If the American leader could be there, it would be “a great, great thing for you to do,” a physical manifestation of the U.S.’s commitment to Ukrainian independence.
President Donald Trump didn’t attend the 2019 inauguration. Neither did Vice President Mike Pence, who’d originally been slated to. The impeachment investigation that began a few months later revealed that Pence’s attendance was spiked after an aide to Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani allegedly told the Ukrainians that the vice president’s attendance was contingent upon Zelensky announcing an investigation into Joe Biden, Trump’s presumed and eventual opponent for reelection.
That investigation stemmed from Zelensky’s second call with Trump. By that point — July 2019, two months into Zelensky’s term in office — the Ukrainians were pushing for a different demonstration of American unity: a meeting at the White House.
“I am very hopeful for a future meeting,” Zelensky said in that call. The impeachment inquiry revealed that such a meeting was contingent upon an announcement of a Biden investigation, as transmitted to Zelensky’s team by a Trump appointee.
“I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington, D.C.,” Zelensky told Trump.
