With the world going to shit, we grasp at straws. We look for heroes. 

As the earliest stinking whiffs of Russian tank exhaust first began to pollute Ukrainian air, Ukraine's President, Volodoymir Zelensky took to the airwaves to address his nation, and his enemies. 

It's old news now, but do yourself a favour and watch it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-zilnPtZ2M

Study carefully his mannerisms and listen carefully to his words. This is a man who knows his country might not exist in a fortnight's time, and who himself probably won't survive as long. He's showing all the emotions a man can be expected to show at such a time. 

And laid bare the invincible soul of a people. 

In what will surely go down as one of history's great speeches, Zelensky appealed to the better nature of his enemies, cutting through the Kremlin's Krap. There was fear, sure, but not a shred of cowardice.  

 Volodymir Zelensky single-handedly redefined the term "grace-under-pressure", and given us the very platonic ideal of courage, dignity, and statesmanship. In Zelensky, the Ukrainans have found their own Churchill, but without the colonial bullshit. A man who's tongue is worth more than a hundred tanks. He could not have emboldened people more if he had a red S emblazoned on his back. 

Immediately after, he put his money where his mouth was, turning down a US offer of asylum and staying in the capital. He's addressed the nation every day, showing himself in battle fatigues, not cowering in a bunker but in sitting boldly in his Kyiv office by an open window. Walking the streets. Visiting troops. He's visibly aged; his skin is paler, his visage darker. Bags have appeared under his eyes. But his humour's intact. "When the country's at war," he says. "кожен день понеділок". 

The contrast with the cynical scoundrel Putin couldn't be more dramatic.

In the West, we've eaten it up. Celebrity hungry as always, fat from our diet of fairy-tales, and bereft of real leadership since God-knows-when, living half-asleep under the likes of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Justin Trudeau, we've pounced on Zelenksy like a kind of paramilitary Beatle. The memes have sprung up, some more tasteless thank others. Full disclosure: I'm as bad as anyone, and worse than many. I'd definitely put his poster on my wall. I'd kiss the man's boot. I like heroes you see. I look for the light in the dark. Right now, the light is Volodymir Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. 

They will lose. I've read too much military history to think otherwise. But they've made it clear that at least their little democracy won't go down without a fight. Most of them will die. That is the ice-cold reality. But, in words and such as these, there is that little thing we call Hope, which all the jack-boots in the world have not yet managed to stamp out. Hope that even if borders can be erased, people cannot. And hope that Truth will survive, even as autocracies don't.