There are currently two Vladimirs front and center on the international political stage.
One is Vladimir Putin, dictator of Russia: a greedy, power hungry, lying, murderous psychopath who appears to have no sense of humor, and stops at absolutely nothing in his struggle to get what he wants.
Another is Volodymyr Zelenskyy, choosing to spell his name with the Ukrainean transcription even though his native language is Russian. He is the democratically elected president of Ukraine, he is brave, upstanding, empathic, kind and honest, and he very clearly has a sense of humor, even though it's hard to show it in the current circumstances.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is worthy of admiration for his handling of a crisis. Vladimir Putin deserves nothing but scorn for his act of creating the crisis, for being directly responsible for the death of thousands and the displacement of millions, for his continuing acts of cruelty against the people of Ukraine and, in his desperate attempts to defend his preposterous lies against scrutiny, his escalating oppression of own population.
One of these Vladimirs has had firm support in recent years from the Republican party and their representatives, and continues to be given a free pass by them no matter what he does.
Now, which Vladimir is it that these Republicans are supporting? Hint: it's not the nice one.
