A month on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the focus shifts to Brussels, where world leaders are gathering for a series of summits.

Nato has applied the tag “extraordinary” to its meeting, as if there was a need to inject more urgency into proceedings. There isn’t. We get it. The Doomsday Clock is ticking.

The get-togethers, followed by President Biden’s visit to Poland, find western alliances in better shape than they have been in years. Gone are the days of leaders being scolded by Donald Trump for not paying their way, of pundits questioning the relevance of creaky old Nato in a fast-changing world of shifting alliances and new perils, climate change top of the list.

After the sight of Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine, no-one is asking, “What is Nato for?”

The EU, its confidence dented by Brexit despite public insouciance, is on the front foot. The talking shop can take action with the best of them, sending lethal aid to Ukraine and joining forces with the US and UK to tighten the screw on sanctions against Russia.

In the US, President Biden can begin to put that bad business in Afghanistan behind him. He can claim to be fulfilling his election pledge to make America part of the international community again.

As for Boris Johnson, did not his defenders always say that cometh the hour cometh a great Prime Minister? How long ago Partygate seems. By the time the Met gets around to finishing what should have been a simple enough investigation, it will be ancient history.

All things considered, the “family photos” at the end of the various meetings should look less frosty than usual.

One does wonder, though, how long the new glow will last and what, ultimately, this reanimated alliance hopes to achieve. More pressing still is the question of leadership during inevitably trying times ahead. To put it bluntly, is there another Zelenskyy in the house?

In politics, in everything, personality is more important than we sometimes care to think. How much easier it would be to game out the future if every leader acted in logical, predictable ways untainted by experience. But we know that the presence of a Kennedy or a Khrushchev, a Truman or a Thatcher, a Blair or a Cook, matters, never more so when it comes to war and peace.

This search for meaning in an individual lies behind all those profiles of Putin asking if he is as mad as he is bad. One wondered if he was the victim of ‘roid rage; another suggested he was being slowly poisoned by whatever doctors had injected into his face to make a failed facelift look better. Then there was the nurse who took to TikTok to suggest the Russian leader had Parkinson’s. How clever to make a diagnosis from all those thousands of miles away.

Then there is the famous/infamous rat story. Even the dogs in the street know that one. Young Vladimir, growing up on the mean streets of post-war Leningrad, had nothing to do for fun but chase rats. One day he cornered a huge, fat one and went in for the kill, only to have the rat turn the tables and start pursuing him. From bannister to bannister it flew, like some rodent Indiana Jones, launching itself at the youngster’s head.

Putin has told the story himself, and it has been repeated many times, the moral being that it is better not to corner anyone, particularly if they have nuclear weapons on their side.

I’m not sure about the rat story. A more positive take on the tale is that it shows there is always a way out of a situation, no matter how bleak it seems.

With the rat story, and all such tales, it is as well to remember that Putin spent a career as a professional liar, learning how to read people and getting them to do what he wanted. When he became a politician it was only the job title that changed.

What of the western leaders who are now acting against him, after so many years of looking the other way? Each has something to recommend them. Likewise, they have their limitations.

Emmanuel Macron, running for re-election, is a lightweight. No matter how many sweatshirts with special forces badges he wears, he is no Zelenskyy.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz broke the mould of postwar German politics by sending lethal aid to Ukraine and putting the gas pipeline from Russia on hold. It is a seismic change in Germany’s position, one which so far the public appears to accept, though there is nervousness about the economic effects of snubbing Russia.

What of the traditional leader of the free world? Joe Biden has benefitted from a rare outbreak of bipartisanship over Ukraine. Yet his approval rating is still dropping like a stone – it is now just 40% says a Reuters/Ipsos poll – and the midterm elections loom.

Though vastly experienced in foreign affairs, the President continues to make the kind of stumbles (referring to Iranians rather than Ukrainians) that have more nervous souls wondering again about the wisdom of having a 79-year-old as commander-in-chief. Nor does his Vice-President inspire much confidence.

Boris Johnson would like nothing more than to be cast as a wartime leader in the mould of his hero, Churchill, but the comparison is ridiculous.

One only has to remember what a disaster Mr Johnson was as Foreign Secretary – see his atrocious blunder over Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – to know he cannot be trusted with fine detail. His likening of war in Ukraine to Brexit shows, if further proof were needed, that his natural home is glibness and nothing more.

Every leader meeting in Brussels faces another common enemy besides Vladimir Putin. With the cost of living spiralling there is serious and growing worry about how millions of people are going to afford the basics. Add to this the devastation and continuing uncertainty wrought by Covid, and the shine starts to go off the west’s new-found confidence in itself.

Whatever is agreed in Brussels over the next few days will not ease the suffering of the people of Ukraine immediately, nor will it be enough to satisfy those pressing for a no-fly zone.

Predictions of a long haul look more convincing by the day. It is hard to be optimistic but there has to be a route back from the position the world finds itself in. We can only hope the gatherings in Brussels point the way.