On August 27, 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte – resurrected by Joaquin Phoenix these days in cinema – wrote a letter to his brother Joseph, King of Spain. “In a war, morale is three times more important than physical condition,” he told her.
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In 2012, when he was an actor, Volodymyr Zelensky played Napoleon in a comedy film: Rzhevsky versus Napoleon, with very bad reviews – at least according to Filmaffinity -. Little could have been thought then that, eleven years later, he would be a president at war, worried, like Napoleon, about the morale of his troops and his population.
Lacking good news on the front, Zelenski already used this Thursday the European horizon – distant, despite the good news that the EU agreement is for Kyiv – to try to raise the spirits of Ukrainians, both those who fight and die in the like those who have become accustomed to going to the shopping center waiting for the anti-aircraft sirens. It won’t be easy.
No one knows better than he, the president, that Ukraine is living the most delicate moment of the war. The prospect of a deadlocked and deadly conflict has accentuated exhaustion and pessimism on the country’s streets and in Western offices.
“The first virtue of a soldier is resistance to fatigue”, said Napoleon.
Again, Zelenski will have to take note of the French emperor he once imitated. Also to undertake the road to Brussels, which will take years, will be complex and will require the resistance of Kyiv and the Twenty-Seven.
Head of International
2023-12-14 20:36:25
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