San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Zelenskyy proves that he’s an authentic hero
When he delivered his inaugural address as president of Ukraine on May 20, 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “And, please, I really don’t want you to hang my portraits on your office walls. Because a president is not an icon and not an idol. A president is not a portrait. Hang pictures of your children. And before you make any decision, look into their eyes.”
If Zelenskyy was as little known now as he was three years ago, if he and the nation he leads weren’t in the line of Vladimir Putin’s fire and delusions, this modest request would be easily honored.
But because of forces beyond his control and through the force of his character, portraits and pictures of the 44-year-old lawyer-actor-comedian-turned politician will be found on walls and in history books for generations to come.
Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine has created a stage on which Zelenskyy is inhabiting a role never played before: that of an individual well-known only to his own country, who, during war, is transformed into an authentic heroic figure as billions watch on television and social media.
Zelenskyy’s emergence as the most popular and inspiring person on Earth, emblematic of the courage and fight of his countrymen and -women, isn’t the result of marketing campaigns or urban legends. It’s because the world is watching in real time as he and his nation defy Putin and his military might.
For weeks, Zelenskyy and Ukrainians were skeptical of warnings from U.S. intelligence that a Russian invasion was imminent, and they were unprepared when it began Feb. 24. All of which makes it that more
remarkable that they refused to go gently into that night and the nights that have followed.
John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, famously said that the true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching. But it’s with the world watching that Zelenskyy is enduring and passing a test no one could imagine or prepare for.
Robert Coles, in “Lives of Moral Leadership,” writes of the ability of any one person to change history’s course. “We need heroes,” Coles writes. “People
who can inspire us, help shape us morally, spur us on to purposeful action — and from time to time we are called on to be those heroes, leaders for others, either in a small, day-today way, or on the world’s larger stage.”
Beginning the night of the invasion, Zelenskyy demonstrated his ability to lead and inspire not only with his physical courage but through his moral leadership and linguistic prowess.
Hours before Putin’s invasion, Zelenskyy appealed to the Russian people: “If they try to take our country away from us, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. Not attack, but defend ourselves. And when you will be attacking us, you will see our faces, not our backs, but our faces.”
The night after the attack began, when his whereabouts were unknown, he recorded a video in front of the presidency building. With his top advisers around him, he said, “We are here. We are in Kyiv. We are protecting Ukraine.”
Last weekend, when the U.S. offered to evacuate Zelenskyy and his family out of Ukraine, he told them, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Go back to his 2019 inaugural address and it’s clear that the hero Zelenskyy has become is the man he already was.
“I’ve often been asked what I’m prepared to do in order to stop fire. It’s a strange question. What are you, the Ukrainians, prepared to lose for the lives of the people close to you, what? I can assure that in order for our heroes to stop dying I am ready to do everything. And I am definitely not afraid to make difficult decisions, not afraid to lose my own popularity, my ratings. And if there’s a need I’m prepared to give up my own position — as long as peace arrives. But without giving up our territories — ever!”
There’s also something heroic about a man who tells you to look into your children’s eyes before you make a decision.