At the conclusion of President Zelensky’s stirring speech to Congress this morning, he exhorted President Biden to be the leader of the world. He then went on to say, “Being the leader of the world, means to be the leader of peace.” 

Mr. Zelensky basically applauded Mr. Biden’s actions regarding military and economic assistance, but I think with those last words he was prodding Mr. Biden to be a stronger leader. A tougher leader. A peace-through-strength leader.

Earlier this week I urged Mr. Biden to stand up to Vladimir Putin — to be much tougher with the Russian in both actions and rhetoric. When Vladimir Putin barks about acts of war, America should bark right back, rather than cowering by finding the nearest desk and crawling underneath it.

Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. He is a global pariah. He has made an enormous mistake in Ukraine.

Tragically, the Ukrainians are bearing almost insufferable costs, but Mr. Putin and his Russia will be the biggest loser. He has a puny economy, his currency has collapsed, his stock market is closed, he’s running out of war-time supplies, and he’s defaulting on his sovereign debt.

More and more, his own people are rebelling. His soldiers are fleeing the convoy. His game plan to march through Ukraine and take Kiev has already failed. 

After prodding by Congress and the Europeans, Mr. Biden is finally providing the kind of military and economic assistance that he should’ve put up before the invasion. At least now he’s getting most of it done.

I want to make two points on what else should happen.

First, there is simply no reason why America should not give the green light to Poland so the old Soviet MiG airplanes could be used by the Ukrainians. Just say yes to the Poles. If Mr. Zelensky and his military think it will help, then help them.

Second, America and Europe never got around to fully sanctioning the Russian oil and gas industry, or some of its key bank lenders. A Wall Street Journal columnist, Holman Jenkins, has a very good idea: The Europeans can escrow Russian gas sales payments until the fighting comes to an end. As Mr. Jenkins said, the president of Ukrainian Naftogaz, Yuriy Vitrenko, likes the idea of cash escrow — and his pipeline delivers Russian gas to Europe.

He thinks it’s a lot better than actually shutting down the Russian gas wells because once you shut them down, it takes a long time to reopen them. Setting up an escrow account would at least stop the cash from flowing to Vladimir Putin’s war machine. 

I like this a lot, and I want to help Mr. Jenkins spread this idea around. If Russia wants to shut down the wells, that’s up to Moscow, but it would mean some bad long-term damage if and when the fighting ends in Ukraine.

Finally, Mr. Biden finally got around to calling Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” today. He foot-faulted on his first serve, but did get the ball in the court on serve no. 2. 

What I’m not seeing is our president taking the lead and publicly attacking Mr. Putin and his insane policies. I mean forceful speeches. 

Remember President Reagan taking on the Soviet Union communists with, “We win, they lose”? Remember Reagan working with Pope John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher to surround the Soviets on the world stage? Remember Reagan’s “evil empire”? Remember “tear down this wall”?

I know there’s only one Reagan — it was my great honor to have worked for him. He was the greatest president of the 20th century. In Mr. Biden’s case, though, couldn’t we have just a little bit of Reagan? 

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.