Alexander Vindman

Alexander Vindman

Alexander Semyon Vindman is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel. He and his identical twin brother, Yevgeny, were born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union. After the death of their mother, the three-year-old twins and their older brother, Leonid, were brought to New York in December 1979 by their father. They grew up in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood.

About Alexander Vindman in brief

Summary Alexander VindmanAlexander Semyon Vindman is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel. He was the Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council until he was reassigned on February 7, 2020. His testimony provided evidence that resulted in a charge of abuse of power in the impeachment of Donald Trump. He cited vengeful behavior and bullying by President Trump and administration officials after he complied with a subpoena to testify in front of Congress during Trump’s impeachment hearings. He and his identical twin brother, Yevgeny, were born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union. After the death of their mother, the three-year-old twins and their older brother, Leonid, were brought to New York in December 1979 by their father. They grew up in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood. The twins appear briefly with their maternal grandmother in the Ken Burns documentary The Statue of Liberty. He speaks fluent Russian and Ukrainian. He graduated in 1993 from Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School. He is the White House official who was actually the first official to testify on a July 25, 2019, telephone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, who was campaigning for President.

He received a Purple Heart medal for wounds he received from an IED attack in the Iraq War in 2004. He served in Iraq from September 2004 to September 2005. In October 2004, he sustained an injury from a roadside bomb in Iraq, for which he received a purple Heart. He later received a master of arts degree from Harvard University in Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian studies. He took part in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps while in college and received a second lieutenant’s commission in the Army’s Infantry Branch in January 1999. He completed the Infantry Officer Basic Course at Fort Benning in 1999 and was sent the next year to South Korea, where he led both infantry and anti-armor platoons. In July 2020, Vind man retired after 21 years in the military. During his Army career, he earned the Ranger Tab, Combat Infantryman Badge, Expert Infantryman badge, and Parachutist Badge, as well as four Army Commendation Medals and two Defense Meritorious Service Medals. He became a foreign area officer specializing in Eurasia in 2008. In this capacity he served in the U.S. embassies in Kiev, Ukraine, and Moscow, Russia.