Is Volodymyr Zelenskyy one of the greatest leaders of all time?

[THG]

I wholeheartedly want my great-grandchildren to be reading about him in the history books around 100 years from now. He is like Ukraine’s Churchill and Abraham Lincoln combined.

[DavidB.]

Too early to tell.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Too early to tell.

This, but he's proving to be a hell of a lot more awesome than "haha let's elect the funny meme president from Ukrainian Veep" gave anyone any right to expect.

[lfromnj]

Isnt he still corrupt and a bunch of other issues ? Stalin let his son die in a camp for the sake of a war. Doesn't mean he was a great leader. Maybe a man for the moment.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

He's not considered corrupt in the "self enrichment" way, more in the "hire who you know" way: namely his entire party was created by the media company behind his tv show, so his admin was staffed with loads of overpromoted media types.

Not that really matters now, obviously.

[Mopsus]

In complete fairness, Stalin didn’t leave Moscow either.

[lfromnj]

In complete fairness, Stalin didn’t leave Moscow either.

Thats the point of what I was making.

[Blue3]

He is some who’s beating the KGB President Putin at his own game of informational warfare

[kyc0705]

Two thoughts:

1. I agree that it's very early to make an assessment on this.

2. I'm also very wary of the tendency to canonize historical leaders, to make them "more than human" in effect, because that invariably erases their actual human qualities, good and bad. You can fall short or have deep flaws in certain respects, and also have the skills and bravery truly rise to the occasion when it really matters. History is full of such examples.

[Bismarck]

Too early to tell but he has shown remarkable courage and resolve over the past few days.

[Хahar 🤔]

Zelensky is a clown who has repeatedly undermined his country's position and antagonized his allies in the months prior to this conflict, but he is very good at playing a leader on television.

[BlueSwan]

He did NOT handle the Trump pressure situation in 2019 very well and I am not convinced by his actions leading up to the invasion, but AFTER the invasion he has been great so far.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

At the very least, he'll go down as one of the iconic war heroes of history.

[lfromnj]

I still remember the pictures of Mr Saleh in Afghanistan at the end of August. He left 2 weeks later.

[Aurelius]

No. This is typical early-war rhetoric where we allow our emotions to take over and get swept up by the narrative. His stand in Kyiv is admirable, and he is showing far more bravery than your typical national leader, but the greatest leaders of all time are a very exclusive club with a very high bar to merit entry.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No. This is typical early-war rhetoric where we allow our emotions to take over and get swept up by the narrative. His stand in Kyiv is admirable, and he is showing far more bravery than your typical national leader, but the greatest leaders of all time are a very exclusive club with a very high bar to merit entry.

This.
(And I'm saying this as someone who admires the figure he cuts politically)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Zelensky is a clown who has repeatedly undermined his country's position and antagonized his allies in the months prior to this conflict, but he is very good at playing a leader on television.

Which is a huge part of actual leadership in a modern war. The Mother Night "we are what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful what we pretend to be" quote comes to mind. Right now, Zelensky is indeed pretending to be Ukrainian Churchill.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Zelensky is a clown who has repeatedly undermined his country's position and antagonized his allies in the months prior to this conflict, but he is very good at playing a leader on television.

Which is a huge part of actual leadership in a modern war. The Mother Night "we are what we pretend to be" quote comes to mind. Right now, Zelensky is indeed pretending to be Ukrainian Churchill.

Not at all disagreeing. You agree Ukrainian Churchill is exactly what Ukraine needs right now, no?

[Meclazine for Israel]

If he gets killed in the next 96 hours, the answer is, ironically, yes.

[John Dule]

Definitely the best actor-turned-president I can think of.

[Хahar 🤔]

Zelensky is a clown who has repeatedly undermined his country's position and antagonized his allies in the months prior to this conflict, but he is very good at playing a leader on television.

Which is a huge part of actual leadership in a modern war. The Mother Night "we are what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful what we pretend to be" quote comes to mind. Right now, Zelensky is indeed pretending to be Ukrainian Churchill.

The Churchill comparison really is apt, considering Churchill's long record of failure in government.

[GeneralMacArthur]

No.  He's been a good wartime figurehead this week, but he was not a very good president (although by Ukrainian standards he could've been a lot worse).

Zelenskyy's approval rating was around 20% prior to this crisis breaking out.

[Flyersfan232]

He's not considered corrupt in the "self enrichment" way, more in the "hire who you know" way: namely his entire party was created by the media company behind his tv show, so his admin was staffed with loads of overpromoted media types.

Not that really matters now, obviously.

so in other words a actual tv show runs ukraine

[All Along The Watchtower]

Zelensky is a clown who has repeatedly undermined his country's position and antagonized his allies in the months prior to this conflict, but he is very good at playing a leader on television.

Which is a huge part of actual leadership in a modern war. The Mother Night "we are what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful what we pretend to be" quote comes to mind. Right now, Zelensky is indeed pretending to be Ukrainian Churchill.

The Churchill comparison really is apt, considering Churchill's long record of failure in government.

My thoughts exactly. Churchill, in contrast to many in his party including his infamous immediate predecessor, was right on the existentially important issue of the time. I suppose if you're going to be a horrible and failed political figure overall you might as well be remembered for something very good.

[brucejoel99]

He did NOT handle the Trump pressure situation in 2019 very well and I am not convinced by his actions leading up to the invasion, but AFTER the invasion he has been great so far.

I would say that this is about as fair an analysis as can be put forth, yeah. Before Zelenskyy, I'd struggle to claim with a straight face that Ukraine was even a real representative democracy to begin with, & yet now, the people have a leader whom they actually love. Are the Ukrainian state's institutions still heavily occupied by Russian & American-placed actors of bygone eras? Yes, but for the first time ever, the vast majority of Ukrainians exercised their right to vote for President, & while Zelenskyy ran & won ironically (he's basically Robin Williams in Man of the Year), he clearly took to the role quickly, immediately seeking to reunite & rally Ukraine together, thereby threatening Putin's sphere of influence & hitherto effective rhetorical arguments pertaining to Ukrainian corruption (while true prior to Zelenskyy & not coincidentally so after massive reserves of gas were found in Ukraine in 2012, that argument was effectively mooted by Poroshenko's landslide democratic removal from office), hence the invasion: he sees Zelenskyy as a legitimate political threat, & so figured that if he didn't deal with him ASAP, then it'd already be too late; it also doesn't help that he's driven crazy by the fact that the biggest threat to his political empire & legacy is a goofy TV comedian but hey, I guess he reaps what he sewed with Orange Man.

The only relevant criticism which I've heard is that Zelenskyy is too led-on by Western promises of assistance & aid for a proxy war without being willing to help on-the-ground, but to be fair, he didn't really have much of a choice if he was truly dead-set on getting Crimea & the Donbas back, which is a part of his electoral mandate. There's a case to be made that he was willing to be diplomatic when he came in, but Western whispers in his ears soon deepened his resistance to sacrificing Ukraine's territorial integrity (& perhaps not so coincidentally control of those hitherto aforementioned gas reserves in the Donbas), leading to the fighting that we now see, but Ukraine, like most post-Soviet states, is incredibly regionally-divided anyway, & very nationalist too, so it was always gonna willingly fend off a foreign invader bringing this fight to them.