TIME Magazine named Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Person of the Year Wednesday after releasing a short list Monday.
A short list released Monday included Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who won last year’s Person of the Year, Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the U.S. Supreme Court.
TIME’s 2022 Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelensky and the spirit of Ukraine #TIMEPOY https://t.co/06Y5fuc0fG pic.twitter.com/i8ZT3d5GDa
— TIME (@TIME) December 7, 2022
The magazine lauded Zelenskyy as a man of the people and war hero. (RELATED: ‘Up Yours Buddy’: Tucker Tells Off Zelensky)
“Zelensky’s success as a wartime leader has relied on the fact that courage is contagious,” TIME Magazine wrote. “It spread through Ukraine’s political leadership in the first days of the invasion, as everyone realized the President had stuck around. If that seems like a natural thing for a leader to do in a crisis, consider historical precedent.”
TIME then noted historical leaders who fled during time of war.
“[Zelensky’s] audience was the world. He was determined not to let them down. His decision to stay at the compound in the face of possible assassination set an example, making it more difficult for his underlings to cut and run.”
TIME’s Person of the Year is an individual or persons who “wielded the most influence in the previous 12 months,” according to TIME. The winner isn’t “necessarily a hero – Adolf Hitler, for example, was Person of the Year in 1938,” according to TIME.