World News for Students of English

29-04-2019 15:00

In Ukraine, presidential elections recently happened. The two finalists were Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Petro Poroshenko, the country’s current president. Zelenskiy collected 73 per cent of the final vote and Poroshenko only 24 per cent.

Zelenskiy, the winner, is a political newcomer. Before he entered politics, he was an actor best known for playing the country’s fictional president on a popular TV series. His TV character won the office after he went on an extremely popular anti-corruption rant.

Zelenskiy used his popularity from the show, and he ran a real-life political campaign with the main focus onfighting corruption. Poroshenko’s campaign, on the other hand, was strongly anti-Russian and nationalistic. The new president is not pro-Russian, but Poroshenko thinks that because he has no experience in politics, it will be easy for Russia to manipulate him.

Russia said that things can get better between Ukraine and Russia, but Putin’s office said that it is still too early.

Difficult words: election (when people vote to choose their leaders), rant (speaking emotionally and critically about something), focus (interest, the most important thing).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.