One can attribute this to the alleged spheres of influence within the realm of geopolitical mumbo-jumbo and bogus historical claims of hegemony over a neighbor who voted overwhelmingly to leave the Soviet Union in 1991, but was defeated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. is a grim, inhumane sight. Images of thousands of refugees fleeing the bombing of apartment buildings in Kyiv and fleeing to its borders are everywhere. Meanwhile, satellite images of Russian military vehicles in a long convoy approaching the Ukrainian capital indicate a more brutal attack. Yet, a person has shone with a Christian sense of purpose. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has shown rare leadership in uniting his country and bolstering global opinion against Russia. A few days ago, when Italian leader Mario Draghi said he was concerned about Zelensky’s safety because the President of Ukraine had missed a call with him, Zelensky responded in a unique way. Dressed in a military brown T-shirt and fleece, he filmed a selfie presidential communiqué with the prime minister and other leaders. The tempo of his speech is sparkling in the translation as well. Standing outside government buildings in Kyiv, Zelensky repeatedly used the word “here”, as in a poem of solidarity to reassure Ukrainians that he and the government were going nowhere. Video clips on social media last less than a minute. Has any wartime leader ever said so much in so few words? The New York Times (NYT) reported that Zelensky responded to an American offer to evacuate him from Kyiv with a sudden straight forward: “I want ammunition, not a ride.”
If the unusual unity of purpose among EU leaders who have unveiled an arsenal of financial and economic sanctions against Russia sounds unprecedented, then Zelensky again deserves a lot of credit. On 24 February, he delivered an impassioned speech at a virtual summit with EU leaders that prompted him to impose harsher economic and banking sanctions than expected. These came a few days later; Even a large part of the foreign reserves of the Russian central bank were frozen. “His intervention will be part of history … The silence in the room was impressive,” a European official told the NYT.
Journalistic shorthand makes it imperative to refer to Zelensky as a comedian-turned-president and attribute the communication successes to his former career as an entertainer. While it is true that the former actor ran a comedy studio called Quartle 95 before he won a resounding election in April 2019 with nearly three-quarters of the vote, his success so far runs deeper.
Far from sounding like an entertainer, unlike many pompous majority populists, Zelensky looks authentic and decent. Instead of spreading hatred, he referred to Russians as family and even switched to Russian in a recent televised speech to appeal directly to Russians, while acknowledging that on Russian media Given the Kremlin’s control, there was little chance of their message reaching them: “We are different, but that is not a reason to be enemies.” In contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speeches appear to have been broadcast from an alternate universe. He oddly justified the invasion as an attempt to de-Nazify Ukraine and liberate it from a drug-led government.
Ukraine is set to be subjugated militarily in a matter of days, but at great cost to Russia’s prestige and economic health. According to military analyst Ajay Shukla, who writes the Broadsword blog, Ukraine’s fierce resistance is not going to change the outcome of the war. “The Ukrainian Army is not organized for daily operations like the Indian Army. There’s a limit to what it can do,” he told me. “Putin will hurt and back down.”
Meanwhile, however, Russia’s ruble has fallen, reaching 109 rubles to the dollar this week, a decline of nearly a fifth since the invasion began, while investors in ruble-denominated bonds have almost no chance of selling them. There is no way out, as securities depositors such as Clearstream and Euroclear announced on Tuesday that they would stop accepting payments in that currency. The tightening grip on Russia’s financial ecosystem, which began to block its biggest banks from access to the SWIFT network, has exceeded many expectations.
Zelensky casts himself and Ukraine as David against a Goliath, but also shames West for being too passive in the beginning. As Ukrainian president in a TV series a few years before he was elected in 2019, the character he played sarcastically tells the International Monetary Fund, “Feeling deep gratitude, I want to say, ‘In my head. stick your head [expletive]!'” A few weeks ago, the EU was speaking in several, often contradictory voices. Today, it is acting decisively, which many did not think it was capable of. Unimaginably, Germany has announced that he would lay down his arms again.
Supposedly ‘constructive’ engagement through trade and economic ties with autocratic countries such as Russia and China now seems a dangerous story. The horrific saga also calls for a re-evaluation of China, which has benefited from the global trade and diplomatic system while trying to undermine it. Putin’s attack has been a wake-up call, but so has the charisma of a Ukrainian president becoming a global hero overnight. In his three years as president, Zelensky has had an uncertain record in delivering on promises—for example, to downplay the role of oligarchs in Ukraine’s economy. But once a disaster struck his country, he accepted the challenge, as few leaders anywhere in recent memory have.
Rahul Jacob is a Mint columnist and a former foreign correspondent for the Financial Times.
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