On the day his hometown was bombed, the British newspaper Financial Times named Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “person of the year”. The newspaper, in its online edition, publishes a photo in which it portrays the leader of Kiev with a proud look, while hinting at a smile, with the Ukrainian flag behind him. He is the person of the year, «person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelensky». The Financial Times explained that it made this choice for the Ukrainian leader’s “extraordinary display of leadership and fortitude”, calling him “a Churchill for the age of social media”.
“Considered by many Ukrainians before the February invasion something of a joke, an amateur struggling to meet the challenge of high office, the 44-year-old Zelensky has earned a place in history for his extraordinary display of leadership and fortitude», writes the masthead. According to the Financial Times, «just as Winston Churchill turned to the radio to rally his country», Zelensky «used social media to campaign relentlessly to gain military and financial support from the West, transforming the condition of his people in a moral leverage on European and US leaders. He convinced the Europeans to bear the enormous costs of resisting Putin and to offer Kiev a path to EU membership ».
During the night, the hometown of the Ukrainian president, Kryvyi Rih, in the south of the country, was attacked by Russian troops. As Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the military administration of Dnipropetrovsk oblast denounced on Telegram, an industrial activity was hit in the raid, killing one employee and wounding three others who were hospitalized. In an interview with the Financial Times, the Kiev leader recalled the first days of the invasion and declared that he was “more responsible than brave… I hate disappointing people”. He hoped for a return to normal life: “I just want to catch a carp in the Dnipro River.”
The masthead portrays Zelensky as “an ordinary man, a leader” with humble tastes” and “a deep sense of humanity, qualities that have earned him the admiration of Ukrainians and their supporters abroad”. He is “the antithesis of Russian President Vladimir Putin, hiding in the Kremlin, whose obsession with rebuilding an empire has cost tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of lives.” For the FT, Zelensky “embodies the resilience of his people” and in these long months of conflict “he has become a standard-bearer of liberal democracy”.
