Volodymyr Zelensky: a hero for our times

Defiant: a screen grab from Zelensky’s video. Picture: AFP / Facebook

I’ve watched the video clip about 15 times, sometimes teary, sometimes weeping. It’s of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky surrounded by his band of brothers in the early stages of the Russian offensive. He’s explaining, simply, “We are here.” As in, we’ve not fled, leaving our country to its fate. We’re on the street, not in some gilded palace with all the pompous trappings of modern leadership, the flags and the enormous desks, the red carpets and saluting minions. The men look exhausted. They’re wearing army colours; T-shirts and simple unbadged jackets.

We’ve been battered by the moral weakness of so many world leaders this century that the sight of a country’s president on the ground, alongside his people in the middle of a war, was arresting. Deeply moving. Zelensky was calm, humble, assured, in what was akin to a selfie video. He was masculine without a trace of the insecurities of toxic masculinity. His simple words felt deeply authentic. When has the world witnessed such a heroic stance, within this generation, from a nation’s leader? We have not. It felt cleansing, recalibrating. Zelensky’s actions were a disruptor to all the cynicism about politics that has built up over recent years. This was a man willing to sacrifice his life for his country. The US offered to get him out but Zelensky replied, “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Bad behaviour in leaders has been normalised over recent years; it’s as if we’ve been pummelled into submission to accept a lesser standard. Donald Trump’s mendacity. Boris Johnson partying while his country was under lockdown. Ashraf Ghani fleeing Afghanistan in a helicopter before Kabul was taken. Zelensky’s predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, leaving his palace full of exotic cars and scarpering to Moscow in the aftermath of the 2014 revolution. Obscene personal enrichment, favours for mates, moral cowardice, abrogation of responsibility, rorting, power for power’s sake – all this is what leadership in the modern world is about, isn’t it? It’s what we’ve come to expect.

But now this. A narrative of myths and movies. Of the sacrificial hero fighting for the people, with the people. There are echoes of Henry V, the indigenous warrior Yagan, David and Goliath… “We’re all here,” Zelensky said in that first week. “Our military is here… we’re all here defending our independence, our country. And it will stay this way.” Give an actor those simple, sonorous lines and there would most likely be posture. But from Zelensky, a former comedian and actor who played a president on Ukrainian TV before he became the real thing, it felt deeply authentic, as if he was reconciling himself with the fact that his death may be very soon. It was a riveting, heart-wrenching watch.

We’ve been starved of this kind of narrative in real life; of the relatively young man leading his troops from the frontline as opposed to the pampered old man at his desk somewhere far away, signing off on the deaths of his nation’s young. We’ve witnessed so much courage during this war, and not just from the president. The defenders of Snake Island, who told the commander of a Russian warship about to obliterate them to “go f..k yourself”. The women making molotov cocktails. The man kneeling in front of the tank. The lone woman praying in front of a church as air raid sirens wailed. The mother on the Ukrainian border delivering a stranger’s children to safety.

Zelensky has taught us so much about inspiring leadership. During his inaugural address in 2019 he told lawmakers: “I don’t want my picture in your offices. The president is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids’ photos instead, and look at them each time you’re making a decision.” It’s a message all leaders would do well to heed. Zelensky will go down in history for his profoundly inspirational leadership in an age when few will.