Spiked
In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US offered Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky the chance to evacuate. But Zelensky declined. ‘The fight is here’, he said. ‘I need ammunition, not a ride.’
Zelensky’s defiant statement set the tone for his remarkable leadership over these past nine months. In the face of Russian aggression, he has stood as tall as he expects his people to. He has rallied Ukrainians in their hour of need. He has given voice to their desire for national freedom. ‘The most terrible steel’, he said on Ukrainian independence day this August, ‘is not within missiles, aircrafts and tanks but in shackles’.
Yet for those in the West wanting Ukraine to give in to Russian aggression, to surrender territory and sovereignty to an invading force, to accept the ‘shackles’, Zelensky’s leadership appears as a problem. And so those peddling this ‘anti-war’ line have taken to demonising him, often in an absurd fashion.
