On People Leadership Ukraine’s Zelensky Has Earned Mantle as De Facto Leader of Eastern Slavs
Eastern Slavs, generally include Ukrainians, Russians, and Byelorussians yet it is Russia’s ruler today that uniquely implies Russia owns the highest tier of a presumed Eastern Slavic caste system with the right to dominate the others. Present day leader of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashenka is submissive to Putin and has acquiesced to Putin’s domination. Having based his post-Soviet legitimacy on Slavic unity, Lukashenka slavishly supports Putin, who is sending more innocent Slavs to their deaths than anyone since Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Thus Lukashenka is the opposite of a traditional, Slavic tribal chieftain
Not so President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who with and for the Ukrainian people has proven Ukraine worthy of freedom from any caste system, Russia’s included. Of the three Eastern Slavic leaders today, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is the only one worthy to lead the Eastern Slavs, territorial lines notwithstanding.
Vladimir Putin was installed in the Kremlin by a former KGB colleague who inveigled himself into the Yeltsin family and administration, Valentin Yumashev. Putin was given power because he was loyal to his senior siloviki and did not speak out of turn to oligarchs. He did not earn power the old tribal chieftain’s way despite PR photo ops showing him wrestling tigers, practicing Judo, and riding in subs in Lake Baikal. Instead, he was one day merely found in the garden of Russian democracy. Putin, despite his carefully managed image has never seen combat and no one knows how he would fare under that pressure.
Zelenskiy pretended none of the things Putin has, yet earned his status by being a true chieftain of the Ukrainian people when tested by a superiorly funded, armed, and populated aggressor power in Putin’s Russia. Zelenskiy has not only passed the test but supplied with partial parity of military supply (after his predecessors saw Ukraine’s nuclear deterrent and military industrial complex swindled off of them by Russia via the Budapest Memorandum), has outperformed Putin with fewer men, fewer resources, has begged, borrowed, and bought weapons, and with sheer moral courage and authority has kept Ukraine fighting for its freedom and life. That is how Slavic chieftains traditionally win and hold leadership over their tribes.
By the old world measures of leadership virtue, Volodymyr Zelenskiy is the proven de facto leader of Eastern Slavs in Eurasia today. If tribal honor and tradition were put first, Putin would honor Zelenskiy, lay down his arms against Ukraine and recognize Zelenskiy’s rule.
And the United States and all free nations seeing and knowing this would support Ukraine’s material, defense, civilian, and intelligence needs to enable Ukraine to strike inside Russia to the extent Russia has aggressively struck inside Ukraine to make it anywhere close to a fair fight. What is the right thing to do so as not to encourage future tyrants to conquer at will and hold the world hostage to their tyranny? All free nations know the answer to that. We don’t sell out fairness at the World Series, and we don’t sell it out among our friends and allies.
