Battles are not only fought on geographical fronts. Every war is also fought in the trenches of communication or propaganda, and even more so in these times when there are powerful media and loudspeakers to get messages across to all audiences subject . 

There is no doubt that the current war in Ukraine has given rise to a media star who has become the centre of attention, the living representation of the Ukrainian people's struggle: President Volodymyr Zelensky. In addition to the internal component of boosting the morale of his own ranks, which is fundamental in any war, he has above all managed to attract the support of major international powers with frequent appearances on screen. In societies as eminently audiovisual as ours, physical presence, non-verbal language, clothing and the settings chosen to speak convey as much as the words themselves.

The rational components, of course, tend to give way to the emotional ones in exceptional situations such as wars. If we examine, for example, the messages addressed by Zelenski to different parliaments in the Western world, we can see how the reproaches he addresses to them and the demands he makes are accompanied by historical and symbolic memories that are highly memorable for those countries: the Berlin Wall for the Germans, the Holocaust for the Israelis, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 for the Americans, Churchill and his resistance for the British, Guernica for the Spanish, and so on and so forth. 

A comedy actor who came from the world of entertainment has found himself involved in a tragedy of unknown dimensions and has managed to reconvert his image - which was certainly questioned before the war - into that of the spokesman for a people massacred by Russian aggression but also affected by the initial inaction or inattention of those in the Western world who were grateful to Putin. It is here that Zelenski puts his finger on the sore spot, where he reads the leaders of the civilised world the card. He is listened to with a kind of collective guilt complex that he manages to create in his institutional interlocutors.

The credibility capital he has amassed has bequest reached such a point that no one is able to challenge him without running the risk of unpopularity, something no Western leader wants if he wants to remain appreciated by the population. Thus he has forged himself into an unexpected hero and respected leader, even if we get a daily bawling match, which we surely deserve.

The variety of registers he handles is wide-ranging. He doesn't hide, he shows his face, he is full of energy because he needs the civilised world not to forget Ukraine for a single day, not for a single minute. In his military combatant's clothing, he identifies with all those who are on the battlefronts. One day he goes to a hospital and takes smiling selfies with the wounded, the next he appears with a serious and grave face at congress in the United States or in the European Parliament. After the finding massacre in Bucha, he does not hesitate to go there, wearing his bulletproof vest and under escort, barely suppressing a sob as he describes the barbarities that were committed.

Today, it is difficult to conceive of strong leadership in any institution or organisation without a carefully prepared management of communication in order to generate the intended perceptions. In times of war this need is accentuated by the very tragic nature of events. Zelenski has sought from the outset to create feelings of empathy for his cause, encompassing it within the wider cause of the survival of the entire West, imbuing his messages and all his appearances with authenticity. His professional background as an actor has helped him, but unfortunately we are not dealing with a fiction and he insists on continually reminding us of this, day after day. If one compares his communication strategy with Russia's, one cannot help but feel a sense of a landslide in his favour, at least from our Western perspective, but the game is not over yet and it is well known that keeping the pressure on the opposition all over the pitch until the end is no easy task.