Volodymr Zelensky is arguably the world’s most talked about leader and Vogue is the definitive fashion publication, but the audacious Ukrainian president’s decision to do a photoshoot for the magazine is not winning many plaudits. 

He and the Ukrainian first lady, Olena Zelenska, sat for a session with famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, who is more renowned for her work for Vanity Fair than Vogue. It is likely that Vogue’s powerful editor, Anna Wintour, had a role in executing the photoshoot, which took place at and around Kyiv, for a special digital cover story.

While Ukraine has been at war since Russian forces invaded the country more than five months ago, the capital city is relatively calm — a fact that for many made Vogue’s choice that much less fashionable. To be clear, the Zelenskys are not modeling designer clothes in the lightly stylized photos. 

In one, Mr. Zelensky, sporting his signature khaki T-shirt, holds his wife’s hand while they are seated at a small carved wooden table. In another, Ms. Zelenska does sport a full-length gown, but it is underneath a long navy coat and she is standing in front of the bombed out husk of an Antonov An-225 Mriya airplane, a Ukrainian soldier on either side. The photo cutline reads, “In Ukraine, tens of thousands of women have been on the front lines, including in combat, and First Lady Olena Zelenska’s role has increasingly turned toward frontline diplomacy.”

That is true and Ms. Zelenska did, as Vogue correctly noted, recently travel to Washington, where she met with the President Biden and the first lady and addressed Congress, all in an unofficial but highly visible capacity. Whether posing for Vogue, with or without her husband, advances the cause for diplomacy and an end to the war is open to some heated debate. A conservative political activist, Scott Presler, tweeted, “Why did we send $54 billion to Ukraine, so Zelensky & his wife could pose for Vogue? You’re at war & you’ve got time for photo shoots?”

That was on the nicer end of the reaction. The Twitterverse at large came down even harder on the shoot. Twitter user David Angelo said, “Zelensky is such a fraud I swear to god what are we doing here I’m not risking WWIII for a Vogue shoot.” A user @MattH_4America tweeted, “Zelensky is ‘fighting for his life’ in Ukraine but has time to meet with Hollywood celebrities and corrupt politicians, preach about the need to transition to ‘green energy,’ and appear in Vogue magazine. Put the war on hold while I pose for photoshoots. It’s always been a scam.”

The flap over the photoshoot is the least of Mr. Zelensky’s problems. For starters, there is the ongoing battle on multiple fronts to oust the Russian forces, which have already laid waste to much of Ukraine. His administration is also contending with a host of domestic issues, from Russian turncoats to institutionalized corruption. 

On Tuesday, a Republican congresswoman of Indiana, Victoria Spartz, complained about Mr. Zelensky’s record on rooting out corruption and questioned his choice of chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. In a letter to Mr. Biden, the Ukraine-born Ms. Spartz wrote that the “lack of appointment of the anti-corruption prosecutor, concerns raised by our military personnel and defense contractors, as well as some NATO allies, raise national security concerns and require proper attention” from the Biden administration.

The Russian invasion has had the unintended consequence of making a celebrity out of Mr. Zelensky, who was famous as an actor in Ukraine before entering politics but was little known beyond Kyiv’s timezone. He has in recent months been a fixture, albeit virtually, at the biggest parleys on the planet, from the Davos forum to sessions of Congress and the British parliament. The aim has been to keep Ukraine’s plight in the headlines, and the fame could be seen merely as a by-product of that ongoing effort. 

One thing that celebrities often do is pose for high-profile magazines such as Vanity Fair or Vogue. Mr. Zelensky doing so was guaranteed to upset many, but it was also certain to help keep Ukraine a hot topic in the global conversation.