World leaders don't get into an octagon and duke it out to see who controls what territory. They send normal people (soldiers) to go acquire it for them. Occasionally the soldiers capture/kill a world leader but usually they reach some kind of (conditional/unconditional) agreement before that point. But the soldiers are not world leaders themselves anyways.
They're both in Kyiv, during an interview earlier today Poroshenko asked the west for more help and talked about the steadfastness of his resistance group, which he is fighting with, during the interview he showed off his rifle:
I recall seeing an image of Zelensky carrying a rifle and wearing tactical gear but can't find it, maybe I misremembered that. He is in Kyiv though, unless he shot this video and left immediately: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/world/europe/ukraine-zele...
OK, that makes more sense. I guess you were just using figurative language.
I believe that they are in Kyiv, and armed, and interacting with the troops. Fighting in battle would be a whole different story. It would certainly be brave, but unadvisable for Zelensky to be spending time in firefights instead of doing his job.
Soldiers are fair game to me, because they often choose to participate. Normal working people are just trying to survive, and destroying their lives in the hopes of influencing their country's leadership is on a different level. I get that it's war and war isn't fair, but my point is that war clearly reveals the underlying classes of people and how they're treated.
Ukraine is under general mobilization now. So no choice whatsoever. Even in volunteer armies one cannot ignore social economic pressure. Usualy the low grunt, those that do the killing and dying, are just poor bastards. On both sides. I read a comment not long ago: Simple soldiers on both sides have more in common with each other than their leadership. That very much true. Are aoldiers, and other combatants legitimate targets? Yes. Does it make their losses and casualties any less tragic? No.
World leaders don't get into an octagon and duke it out to see who controls what territory. They send normal people (soldiers) to go acquire it for them. Occasionally the soldiers capture/kill a world leader but usually they reach some kind of (conditional/unconditional) agreement before that point. But the soldiers are not world leaders themselves anyways.