Ukrainian President Zelenskyy picked as TIME’s 2022 ‘Person of the Year’

Time magazine named President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and “the spirit of Ukraine” as its 2022 person of the year on Wednesday.

“Whether the battle for Ukraine fills one with hope or with fear, Volodymyr Zelenskyy galvanized the world in a way we haven’t seen in decades,” Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote.

The award, which has been given out annually since 1927, was announced Wednesday crediting Zelenskyy for leading Ukraine in their war with Russia, and his refusal to concede.

Before taking on the role of President, Zelenskyy worked as an actor and starred in the sitcom “Servant of the People” – a show about a school teacher who becomes the president of Ukraine after his rant about corruption goes viral.

“[Zelenskyy] was adaptable, trained not to lose his nerve under pressure,” Time reporter Simon Shuster wrote of Zelenskyy, adding that he “knew how to read a crowd and react to its moods and expectations. Now his audience was the world. He was determined not to let them down.”

Zelenskyy won the presidential election in 2019, defeating Petro Poroshenko. He campaigned on the promise of breaking up oligarchs’ economic power and ending the war in Ukraine’s Donbass region.