There is no more powerful symbol of Vladimir Putin’s failure.
A year ago, the Russian leader launched a blitzkrieg against Ukraine, mocking its history and sovereignty, sending his tanks churning toward Kyiv to obliterate the democratically elected government led by a former comic actor. His purpose was clear: To crush once and for all Ukraine’s dreams of joining the West and to force it to return to the orbit of greater Russia.
Back then, anyone predicting how the anniversary of the war would be marked might have mused about a Russian military parade and a visit by Putin himself to a puppet leader he installed in a nation again under Moscow’s iron fist.
The reality is far different following heroic Ukrainian resistance bolstered by weapons sent by NATO members.
The president of the United States, in overcoat and shades, strolled through Kyiv in daylight, visiting a historic church as air raid sirens wailed and standing exposed alongside President Volodymyr Zelensky in the city’s vast, open and iconic St. Michael’s Square.
His presence sent a message of defiance to Putin most directly and a cherished sign of resolve and empathy for the people of Ukraine. His audience also included European powers in a western alliance that Biden has led and invigorated like no president since the end of the Cold War. And every time a commander-in-chief makes such an audacious splash on the world stage he’s also making a point to Americans – on whose support continuing extraordinary support for Ukraine’s war effort depends – and to his own fervent domestic critics.
Biden deliberately contrasted the sense of then and now that his visit, just before the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, conjured.
“That dark night one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv,” Biden told Zelensky at a news…
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