Volodomyr Zelenskyy paid a surprise visit to Joe Biden this week. It was really, really important.

For starters, it was the Ukrainian president’s first trip outside his country since Vladimir Putin’s war began in February. And, as 2022 grinds to a close — but as the war grinds on, Zelenskyy, and his Washington trip, reminds us of two important things.

One is about him. By any reasonable standard, Zelenskyy is simply an extraordinary human being and leader. A Russian “special military operation” that everyone expected to take a weekend collided with a wall of Ukrainian might — and Zelenskyy’s firm leadership.

For Russia, and for Putin, the war has been a catastrophe. As the New York Times reported in a special section on Sunday, “This isn’t war. It’s the destruction of the Russian people by their own commanders.”

More than 100,000 Russian troops killed. More than 300,000 wounded. More than 3,000 Russian tanks destroyed or captured. More than 6,000 armoured combat vehicles destroyed or captured. More than 300 Russian aircraft shot down.

The Russian military failure has been astonishing. As the Times reported: “(Russian troops go into battle) with instructions grabbed off the Internet for weapons they barely know how to use. They plod through Ukraine with decade-old maps, or no maps at all. They speak on open cellphone lines, revealing their positions and exposing the incompetence and disarray in their ranks.”

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, may not have won the war yet, but he certainly is not losing it. Strategically, tactically, he has defeated Putin’s three main objectives: One, he has unified and strengthened NATO. Two, he has crushed the physical expansion of the Russian empire. Three, he has foiled Putin’s ambitions to render himself a superpower on the world stage.

And, with his visit to Washington — mainly, as he candidly admits, to obtain more weapons — Zelenskyy reminds us of Winston Churchill’s trip to Washington after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, more than 80 years ago. Like Churchill then, Zelenskyy has now become the leader of the free world.

That is what the Washington trip tells us about him. But what does it say about us, in North America?

Joe Biden ends the year in a strengthened position. In November’s midterm elections, Biden kept the Senate, and he kept his opponents to minor gains in the House of Representatives. But all of that had more to do with the missteps of the Republicans — Trump, abortion, January 6, election denial, etc. — than it did with the Democratic president.

In Canada, meanwhile, Zelenskyy reminds us that our own leadership is sorely lacking.

Justin Trudeau may be ending 2022 in a better mood — thanks to a convincing win in a Mississauga byelection, thanks to his performance at the inquiry into the application of the Emergencies Act — but his main problems remain. He leads a scandal-prone government, one that is out of ideas and out of energy.

And, as much as he lusts after a Parliamentary majority, he is still far from realizing that goal. If an election were held today, he would get reelected, but he would not improve his position.

His main opponent, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, fares no better. His chosen candidate in the aforementioned byelection was crushed by the Liberals — and Poilievre bizarrely did not even bother to campaign there.

Meanwhile, an Angus Reid Institute poll released this week suggests that the new Conservative leader is much more unpopular than any of the three previous Conservative leaders. All of whom, we note, were defeated by Trudeau.

The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh? He barely rates a mention. He has permitted his party to be effectively taken over by Trudeau. He has become irrelevant.

All that, as Zelenskyy alights in Washington this week, reminds us about two important things. One good, one bad.

The good: The world has a leader like Vladimir Zelenskyy.

The bad: None of us here in North America have a leader like him.