Volodymyr Zelensky has taken to the streets to help defend his beloved homeland of Ukraine.  Joe Biden, while vowing to fight Vladimir Putin with tough sanctions, retreated to his Delaware home, most likely to the comfortable basement hideaway that served him so well in his campaign to become the leader of the free world. 

The despotic Putin sent four hundred mercenary thugs to Ukraine, their intent being to assassinate Zelensky.  The courageous Ukrainian is undeterred.  Biden's State Department offered the Ukrainian leader a route of escape.  He answered in a tone unfamiliar to Biden and his entourage of sycophants: "I need ammunition, not a ride."

Leaders such as Zelensky are in short supply in today's world.  The lineup of heads of state seems to consist of mainly two types — thugs such as Putin, Xi Jinping, and the little fat guy with the bad haircut in North Korea, versus a host of ineffective chief executives such as Biden and the various European sovereigns who would abandon their NATO responsibilities rather than be cut off from Russian oil. 

Granted, Ukraine is not a NATO nation, but it did relinquish its sizable stockpile of nuclear weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union with the promise from many of those same NATO nations that it would be protected in case of a Russian attack.  Those promises now sound hollow.  Winston Churchill, who once trod the same European soil, would be appalled.  When he vowed to "Never give up. Never, never, never!" he was not referring to giving up Russian petroleum.

Meanwhile, Putin is not content to be merely the guy who ended an unpopular vaudeville performance by yanking the offender offstage with a hook.  Vlad the Invader wishes to place a C-4 charge on the tip of the hook with the detonator in his own hand.  Zelensky, a former comedian, has committed the unforgivable sin, in Putin's mind, of suggesting that the Russian bare-chested leader is the real joke.  For such an offense, nothing short of death will suffice.

When King George VI of Great Britain refused to leave the British Isles with his family during the siege of WWII, he provided the British and the rest of the free world a genuine profile in courage.  He lived to celebrate victory.  We can only hope and pray that Volodymyr Zelensky fares as well.

Image: Presidential Office of Ukraine.