Forget Trump, Zelensky is the true leader of the free world

The Ukrainian president has demonstrated, again and again, the heroic, mythical qualities of the role. He presents as decent, brave, virile; secure in himself.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Courage is lonely, but pulls others into its wake. It nets the collective, unifying the unbrave with a grand vision of a better, fairer future. The singularity in it is electrifying, galvanising. It’s about living as a major character even when your destiny veers towards the minor. As JM Coetzee wrote, “Live like a hero. That’s what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?” And in this shockingly chaotic Trumpian era, with its body blows of seismic change, we’re crying out for leaders of rare courage in so many arenas.

My person of the moment, Volodymyr Zelensky. Since February 2022, when Russia tried to steal Ukraine. The unrelenting stress that Zelensky has endured over the past three years is unimaginable, and yet he persists. On paper Donald Trump is the leader of the free world but in reality it’s Zelensky who has demonstrated, again and again, the heroic, mythical qualities the role aspires to. And perhaps there was a dollop of petty jealousy mixed into Trump’s astonishingly vicious attack on him in the Oval Office.

Zelensky presents as Trump’s opposite – decent, brave, virile; secure in himself. The diminutive former comedian has been leading a nation at war, one of the most difficult jobs on Earth. He’s been travelling the world, talking to other leaders and never fading in the face of extraordinary complexity. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen responded to Trump’s attack on him with this: “Zelensky is democratically elected and, by the way, an extraordinarily capable political leader in Europe who … has fought every single day for the peace, freedom and security of Europe, and thus also for the Americans.” Courage is endurance. Persistence in the face of fear. It’s not an absence of fear but a taming of fear. A stoic carrying on, as Zelensky has demonstrated.

Time magazine garlanded Trump as its Person of the Year last December, but someone else was deserving of that honour. A tiny French woman who stepped into main character energy in her seventies and stared down 50 rapists procured by her husband to sexually assault her. Gisèle Pelicot riveted the world with her flinty, thoughtful courage, forcing a global spotlight onto questions of consent and complicity. She persisted. At one point she was invited by the judge to address the court. “I’m expressing a desire to change society,” she said. “I wanted all women who are rape victims to say to themselves, ‘Mrs Pelicot did it, so we can do it too.’ It’s not us who should feel shame, but [the perpetrators].”

Gisele Pelicot was named one of the Women of the Year 2025 by Time Magazine.

Last year also saw the blazing courage of Ahoo Daryaei, an Iranian student who stripped to her underwear at her prestigious university in protest over her nation’s diminishing, erasing female dress code. Daryaei was subsequently forced into a car by a group of men, but the footage of her courageously lonely protest became iconic; it’s in the league of the lone man with his shopping bags in Tiananmen Square, facing down the might of Beijing’s tanks.

Zelensky, Pelicot and Daryaei are all up to their elbows in the stress of their circumstances, yet all have demonstrated great courage. To me, the key to courage is in continuing when it would be so easy to give up. Enduring. These people have had the fortitude to act, to try to correct grievous wrongs, in an attempt to create a fairer, happier world. With their main character energy they’ve become global instruments for change, and will hopefully awaken others to courage. Because it’s infectious. May the legacy of their moral strength be change. There may be fear, but courage looks it in the face and steps up. Persists. And doesn’t give in. That’s the lesson of it. As Nobel laureate Han Kang writes in her breathtaking new novel We Do Not Part, “I don’t want to live face down on the ground like you.”