As a citizen of any country, we hope that the leaders that we have are powerful ones who can make tough decisions and make them well when the pressure is caving in on them. We see leaders like Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, who hides away telling protestors to leave instead of showing strong leadership and confronting them himself.
Looking at our own president of the United States, Joe Biden, we see a man who has a hard time showing enough physical strength making it up to a podium, let alone the lack of strength in his leadership. With all that was going on in Ukraine, Biden was hiding out in his private estate in Delaware while his administration, as a whole, was nearly impossible to contact during a time of stress for much of the nation.
When we look at a nation who is currently under attack by a nation much bigger than themselves, Ukraine, we see a leader who is standing up for his country, with his country.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is showing a much different view of what a leader ought to look like. Even while his country is under attack and he has had several assassination attempts and threats, he is still in his country with his people and being seen even amidst the destruction, violence and danger posed within his own borders.
There were many pictures that were going viral of Zelenskyy walking among the streets in tactical gear with his people and military. This is a shock to many in the West because of the cowardly leadership we see near and within our own country.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was offered evacuation plans by President Biden, but he refused those plans deciding it best to stay in his own country to help any way that he can.
According to Fox News, Zelenskyy said, “Don’t allow brave and strong people who share your values to be exterminated,” to the United States Senate in a virtual meeting on March 5. He was asking for help with more supply and specifically planes that could help them in their defense instead of sending our own people to die for his country and not their own.
And in an Axios article, Zelenskyy also pleaded with the United States to stop all business buying oil from Russia. “If you had started sanctions months ago, there would not have been war,” Zelenskyy added to the United States Senate in their meeting. If there weren’t pipelines in our own country that were shut down so early in this administration, then we would have enough oil supply for ourselves and even some to help other countries, such as Ukraine during this troubling time.
During all of this, we see a leadership model that is incredibly and undeniably strong that is favorable by many across, not just Ukraine but the whole world. My thoughts and prayers are going out to the Ukrainian people and their leaders as they go through this inhumane attack at this time, but I stand with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the fact that he wants aid through supplies, not sending our own troops into his country to die on foreign land. I also commend Zelenskyy in his incredible and unwavering strength as a leader during this time.
