domingo, febrero 27, 2022

En horas de angustia

 Volodymyr Zelensky, ex comediante, presidente algo inesperado de Ucrania desde 2019, resiste en el cuarto día de invasión rusa, con fuego ya en Kiev, mostrando a quien quiera oír que está en su sitio. Dada la diferencia de fuerzas, quizá en pocos días esté prisionero o peor, desaparecido o muerto (Putin es especialista en estas artes), pero ahora está ahí, donde se espera que esté. Macron, Scholz, Biden, ¿están a la altura? 

Arkady Ostrovsky, en The Economist:

On the morning of February 26th Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video of himself on Twitter. After a night of the worst fighting Kyiv had seen since the second world war, and of propaganda from Moscow claiming that he had fled the capital in fear, Ukraine’s president emerged from his office red-eyed and unshaven. He was holding a smartphone in his right hand as he filmed himself walking past the House with Chimaeras, a famous Kyiv landmark that serves as the presidential residence. He smiled at the camera and declared: “Good morning to all Ukrainians! There are a lot of fakes out there…[but] I am here.”

Mr Zelensky looked exhausted, but happy: happy to be alive, happy that Kyiv had not fallen and happy to play the role of a national leader, holding his nerve and his country together in the darkest hour of its 30-year history as an independent state. That was not the role he had chosen, but the one that was thrust upon him when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th. He has carried it off with dignity, strength and a dash of humour. When America offered to airlift him to safety, he retorted: “The fight is here; I need anti-tank ammo, not a ride.”

The night before, speaking in Moscow, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, had pledged to rub out Mr Zelensky. Ukraine’s president is a native Russian-speaker of Jewish heritage. Nonetheless, seething with hatred, Mr Putin had branded him and his government “drug-taking Nazis”.

If fortune favours Mr Zelensky, it is because he carries the virtue that Mr Putin lacks: he speaks the truth for his people

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