The trip of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Bakhmut is a powerful demonstration.
No other place in Ukraine is currently being fought over as fiercely as this city, which has been completely destroyed over the past few months.
With images like those from Bakhmut, Zelenskyy underscores the difference between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
With the meter-long table in the Kremlin, where he used to keep westerners at a distance earlier this year, he sent a powerful symbol of his own fear into the world.
Zelenskyy, on the other hand, was in all key places of the war from the first days of the invasion: in Kyiv, when it was unclear whether the city would withstand the attackers, in Bucha immediately after the massacre became known, in Cherson, which had just been liberated.
These performances are stagings in a propaganda war that Ukraine and Russia are waging for the sympathy of the world public.
Selenskyj is not wrong to say that they show the flair for effective performance that has made him a success as an actor.
Still, these trips are the opposite of a show.
First of all, they prove to the Ukrainians the seriousness of the Kiev leadership in this struggle for the survival and freedom of their country.