Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared his personal income for the first time since the outbreak of war with Russia, as part of his effort to increase transparency in his government.

In 2021, the year before Russia invaded Ukraine, Zelenskiy and his family reported income of 10.8 million hryvnia ($285,000), down 12 million hryvnia from the previous year, even as his income was boosted by the sale of $142,000 of government bonds, according to a statement on his website.

In 2022, the first year of the Russian invasion, the Zelenskiy family’s income fell further to 3.7 million hryvnia as he earned less income from renting real estate he owned because of the hostilities.

Even as the war allowed Ukrainian officials to withhold revealing sensitive personal information, Zelenskiy pushed to make them publicly declare assets. Increasing transparency and tackling graft are necessary for his country to ensure continued financial aid from its western allies, even as more than $100 billion of funds are held up due to political maneuvering inside US and EU.

  • Bumblefumble@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    Tbf, the US tried the actor president twice, and they turned out to be the two worst presidents in modern US history, so it might not always be the best idea to elect the “outsider”.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Reagan and Trump. The former was a b-list actor before becoming governor and then president and the latter played a successful businessman in the fictional series “The Apprentice”.

        • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          It’s so ironic that California and New York, two beacons of progressivism have us those two turds.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Liberalism, not progressivism. There are big and important differences.

            You’re right about the rest though, of course.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Modern liberalism aka neoliberalism isn’t really that much about progress, though. It’s more about preserving the status quo and maybe a little Incrementalism if the owner donors allow it.

                The liberties that liberals originally fought for hundreds of years ago are the floor of expected liberty now and neoliberalism is a center-right to right wing ideology.

                • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  Liberalism is a precursor to progressivism though. You can’t make progress without it. You can’t expect to be taken seriously this way.

                  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    Liberalism is a precursor to progressivism though

                    In the same way as coal is a precursor to diamonds, sure. Doesn’t mean that coal is useful for making jewelry today.

                • Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net
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                  10 months ago

                  According to one study of 148 scholarly articles, neoliberalism is almost never defined but used in several senses to describe ideology, economic theory, development theory, or economic reform policy. It has become used largely as a term of abuse and/or to imply a laissez-faire market fundamentalism virtually identical to that of classical liberalism – rather than the ideas of those who attended the 1938 colloquium.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

                  Neoliberalism = liberalism I don’t like

                  • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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                    10 months ago

                    Neoliberalism is still center-right. The political spectrum in the US is so skewed to the right that center-right feels like a progressive position.

                  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    according to one study

                    🙄

                    Neoliberalism is the ideology of Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, both Clintons, and Biden, to name a few obvious examples.

          • namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev
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            10 months ago

            There are terrible people everywhere. California and New York have 10s of millions of residents - there are bound to be some that are shitstains. The problem is that money = power and when it’s possible for one individual to have too much money, it inevitably means that terrible people will be able to amass this kind of power.

            This is why wealth (in)equality is important - it’s what determines how much powerful individuals are able to become. If it’s too easy for a single person to amass too much power, inevitably, the wrong person will be able to gain it.