Zelensky’s success as a wartime leader has relied on the fact that courage is contagious. It spread through Ukraine’s political leadership in the first days of the invasion, as everyone realized the President had stuck around. If that seems like a natural thing for a leader to do in a crisis, consider historical precedent. Only six months earlier, the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani—a far more experienced leader than Zelensky—fled his capital as Taliban forces approached. In 2014, one of Zelensky’s predecessors, Viktor Yanukovych, ran away from Kyiv as protesters closed in on his residence; he still lives in Russia today. Early in the Second World War, the leaders of Albania, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Yugoslavia, among others, fled the advance of the German Wehrmacht and lived out the war in exile.

There wasn’t much in Zelensky’s biography to predict his willingness to stand and fight. He had never served in the military or shown much interest in its affairs. He had only been President since April 2019. His professional instincts derived from a lifetime as an actor on the stage, a specialist in improv comedy, and a producer in the movie business. …

How much credit does Zelensky deserve for that defense? In the early hours of the invasion, the President was informed that Russia was attempting to fly thousands of troops to the gates of Kyiv in military cargo planes, and he gave orders to stop those planes from landing at any cost. One of his advisers, Mikhailo Podolyak, had never seen his boss that furious. “He gave the harshest possible orders: Show no mercy. Use all available weapons.”

But the armed forces of Ukraine did not need special dispensation to defend the airport where the Russian planes were headed. The machinery of Ukraine’s resistance was already in motion, and Zelensky was not at the wheel. He had spent months downplaying the risk of a full-scale invasion, even as U.S. intelligence agencies warned that it was imminent. When it started, he gave his generals the freedom to lead on the battlefield, and focused instead on the dimension of the war where he could be most effective: persuading the world that Ukraine must win at any cost. “Do prove that you are with us,” he said in a speech to the European Parliament in the first week of the invasion. “Do prove that you will not let us go. Do prove that you are indeed Europeans, and then life will win over death, and light will win over darkness.”

[This is such an obvious choice that I’m a little surprised Time realized it. — Ed]