OPINION:
As Russia continues to attack Ukraine with one of the world’s most powerful armies in modern history, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has remained a force of calm and unity for his people.
The unprovoked attack from Moscow began early Thursday morning in Ukraine only hours after Mr. Zelenskyy addressed both the Ukrainian and Russian people. Mr. Zelenskyy urged the Russian people to take to the streets and demand Russian President Vladimir Putin change course while reassuring Ukrainians to remain strong and stand together, even offering them arms to help defend their country.
“We have no need for another Cold War, or a bloody war, or a hybrid war, but if we are attacked militarily if they try to take away our freedom, our lives, our children’s lives, we will defend ourselves,” he said. “When you attack, you will see our faces and not our spines, our faces.”
Mr. Zelenskyy’s bold words echoed throughout the world media as Mr. Putin fulfilled that prophecy by attacking and dropping bombs throughout Ukraine, including its capital city of Kyiv.
Mr. Putin tried justifying the attack shortly beforehand, in a lengthy speech, erroneously blaming Ukraine for allowing outside forces to threaten Russian cultural and territorial integrity, making the outlandish argument that Moscow had to “de-Nazify” Ukraine despite Mr. Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage.
Mr. Putin’s attack comes 50 years after former Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev tried to use the Soviet navy to move nuclear arms into Cuba under the false pretense that his move was also a defensive one.
President John F. Kennedy, who was in his mid-40s at the time — just like Mr. Zelenskyy — was in a similar situation in that he too was a newly minted president facing off with a more experienced master rival in Moscow. Just six years before the 1962 crisis erupted, Khrushchev had slammed his shoe on the podium of the United Nations, shouting, “We will bury you.”
Much of the world feared Khrushchev and Moscow’s military might. But as Soviet naval vessels sailed to Cuba, Kennedy’s show of resolve offered reassurances to the American people and the world that the West would prevail. Like Mr. Zelenskyy, Kennedy addressed the world and in doing so, his rival, Khrushchev, saying the U.S. had “no wish to war with the Soviet Union,” but that any hostile move would “be met by whatever action is needed.”
Unlike Kennedy, however, Mr. Zelenskyy has no nuclear weapons to defend his nation. Those weapons were forsaken in 1994 when the U.S. and Russia convinced Ukraine to dismantle its nuclear arsenal in exchange for recognition. Unlike Khrushchev, Mr. Putin will not go to sleep at night having to worry about the threat of mutually assured destruction.
And unlike the United States, Mr. Zelenskyy’s homeland is not shielded by the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, the Ukrainian people have been surrounded by nearly 200,000 armed troops, its skies dominated by Russian missiles and its Black Sea occupied by the Kremlin’s warships.
Knowing this, and the fact that Mr. Putin has already made a “kill list” of those Ukrainians he wishes to execute or enslave in reeducation camps, Mr. Zelenskyy remained brave and defiant, even after Russia began dropping bombs.
“I will be with you all the time,” Mr. Zelenskyy said to his people in a video as Russia began bombing. “War is a terrible misfortune. They are trying to take away our freedom, our children’s freedom … Stay strong … Ukrainians will never give up their freedom to anyone … Glory to Ukraine.”
Although Mr. Zelenskyy and Kennedy were roughly the same age when they both faced their crisis against the Kremlin, their circumstances could not have been more different. Mr. Zelenskyy knows he is David facing Goliath, and he also knows that those he hoped would come to his country’s aid are not coming.
Russia has the weapons, hardware and troops it needs to achieve a military victory, and so, from the outset, it would seem Ukraine has little hope. But it does have hope. It also has a million troops led by a president who has demonstrated a fearless, unwavering loyalty to his people and their cause of independence.
As Mr. Putin continues to fire upon innocents in Ukraine, the Russian people will soon see the stark difference between their leader and the one they face in Kyiv.
In Mr. Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian people have an elected president of their choosing, not a dictator who murders and imprisons his political opponents because he is too frightened to face them in a free and fair election. In Mr. Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian people have a champion who cares about their well-being while Mr. Putin needlessly puts Russian lives in danger to repair his bruised ego over the Soviet collapse.
The world sees this, and as more innocents perish, the Russian people will see Mr. Putin for what he really is — a coward who sends others to die and kill for his glory while he remains safe behind the walls of the Kremlin.
Three decades ago, the mujahedeen’s will to win saved Afghanistan and caused a Soviet defeat. Mr. Zelenskyy’s courage has already inspired some Ukrainians to volunteer and join the fight with their military.
If the Ukrainian people stand together and show the same bravery Mr. Zelenskyy has, they may have a chance to preserve their independence — and prove that, despite Mr. Putin’s determination to rekindle ancient Soviet glories — history is often better left in the past.
• Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is the former director of the U.S. Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the assistant commentary editor for The Washington Times.
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