On the night of February 23 to 24, 2022, Russian troops are about to invade Ukraine or have already started to do so. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, informed of this, immediately called the Kremlin in Moscow to speak to President Putin.
But the Russian president is repeating himself incommunicado . Gambling that the war—which he starts but won’t call it that—will only last a few days or weeks at most, and that Zelensky will not survive it. Not as a president and hopefully not as a person.
How can a person be mistaken? The war that should not be called war has been raging for almost a year and a half now. And the president, who should no longer be president, is more firmly in power than ever, is adored by almost his entire people and is a widely admired and respected head of government worldwide who is often unconditionally supported by many colleagues. They repeatedly refer to the Ukrainian leader not only as a fighter for his own country and people, but also as a champion of the central values of their own nations and peoples.
Values he stated as his main goals shortly after his inauguration as president thus (note the order): “And then there are the values, the values of integrity and honesty, of good manners and tolerance, the values of liberty and democracy, of respect for the law and private property, and of respect for each other.”
Big words. But words that have now also gained great credibility with him. So great that those who support him, in a sense, place their fate in his hands. Like US President Joe Biden or our own Prime Minister Mark Rutte. With their repeated offers of massive material and moral support and statements such as: “He must win this war one way or another because our world is also at stake with him.”
But can he win the war? Will Zelensky and his associates sustain this dramatically disruptive state of war? I believe that his ‘dress code’, his invariably green army outfit, is his all-encompassing answer to that: ‘Solidarity with the troops at the front, relentless focus on the battle fought and won by them and all ordinary Ukrainians with him, myself included. must be. And this message to my smartly dressed colleagues at meetings of government leaders: if you want to be here next to me in my fighting gear, want it on the battlefield.
Dress code as a weapon indeed. Possibly after the example of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who always showed himself to the public in the same way as before during the Second World War, wearing a bowler hat and puffing thick cigars. With that every day reassuringly labeling the war as his business as usual – just his job and assignment.
Zelensky goes one step further. He swears only then to take off his fighting gear for ‘a neat suit’ when war for Ukraine is no longer usual is. It shows the great leader in this little man. Once an actor, he had the role of president in a TV series. That role, it now appears, was always made for him.