Few world leaders arrive for an effective state visit to the UK wearing battle fatigues, but even fewer leaders come to the UK with a mission to remind their hosts of their own greatness and history, manifestly leaving a flattered audience so convinced that the world does indeed need their country’s leadership. Volodymyr Zelenskiy has many extraordinary skills as a showman, but one is a unique ability to appeal to a nation’s psyche.
In retrospect, it would have been unforgivable for the Ukrainian leader to have only visited EU leaders at their meeting in Brussels and not also flown to the UK – the major European power that has from the outset provided not just moral support, but been in the vanguard in offering arms, training, intelligence, and has since 2014 cooperated with Ukraine by helping to rebuild its navy. So when it was leaked that Zelenskiy was likely to address EU leaders on Thursday, it should have been self-evident he would also come to London, but the visit, meticulously planned and choreographed, was kept under wraps until Downing Street broke the news before 9am.
