As Russian tanks rumbled into Ukraine in the predawn a year ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recorded a simple video address to his nation: "We are strong,” he said. "We will defeat everyone because we are Ukraine.”
Amid the swirl of chaotic battles, shifting military fortunes and the thorny terrain of global diplomacy that followed, one thing remained constant: Zelenskyy showing up in selfies filmed on his phone, to deliver speeches and to appear in slickly produced videos beamed into foreign parliaments, his haggard, bearded but defiant appearance becoming the face of Ukraine’s struggle at home and abroad.
For years, Zelenskyy, a former comedic actor, had been brushed off by critics as a lightweight, new to politics, naive about Russia and buffeted by the political headwinds of a presidential impeachment in the United States and a failed diplomatic endeavor with Russia. That is no longer the case.