I'm musing this morning on the subject of leadership, the leadership of Nations, in particular, and how the contrast between Russia's Putin and Mr Zelensky of Ukraine couldn't be more stark.
Zelensky has proven by the way he’s comported himself in the office — and by the way he’s led Ukraine since the tanks started rolling — that he cares about the Ukrainian people and about their country and that he’s 100% committed to doing what must be done to lead them through this terrible, unjustified, once-in-a-generation crisis.
The fact that he spent most of his adult life as an entertainer does certainly make all of this highly unusual, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It just makes his leadership that much more extraordinary and worthy of respect.
Daddy Vladdy, on the other hand, has shown again and again that he puts his own welfare — and the welfare of his oligarchical buddies — over the welfare of the Russian State. And certainly over the welfare of the hapless troops he sent into harm’s way five weeks ago in his ill-fated attempt to destroy the Ukrainian Nation as it's constituted today and drag her back into Russia’s orbit.
The World — or at least the part of it that has always seen Putin for who and what he is — will always respect and admire a leader like Zelensky and loathe, despise and shun a “leader” like Putin.
"Bulldog Ben" Basile
© 2022 Ben Lawrence Basile
