Olena Zelenska has stated several times that she did not want a life in public, but was in a way forced into the spotlight when her husband Volodymyr Zelenkyj in 2019 was elected President of Ukraine.
Especially after the Russian invasion on February 24, Zelenska has become a name many know. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper The country she tells of life after the war broke out.
– Sees no end to the disorder
– Makes no sense
Avisa meets the first lady at her office in Kyiv. The journalist describes that the windows are covered with sandbags and that they must use a flashlight so as not to stumble inside the premises. The building is also well guarded by armed, uniformed men.
– We felt a lot of tension in the months before the war. Everyone knew it, but no one, not even me, could imagine that something so cruel could happen in the 21st century, says Zelenska.
In the days before the invasion, President Zelensky tried to calm the population. He stated, among other things, that Ukrainians could peacefully spend the summer on the beaches of their home country.
She explains that she usually does not comment on the man’s political message, but emphasizes that February 24 was a terrible test for them.
– This is not a war with political arguments. All these statements about the Nazis in Ukraine make no sense. They want to exterminate us as a people, fight against who we are (..) They want us to be their subjects, says the first lady.
– The enemy will not stop
– Force me
Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year. The Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin refuse to refer to it as an invasion or war, but instead refer to it as military “special operations.”
Putin has repeatedly tried to put the blame on the West, and believes it is they who in reality have caused “war”, according to NTB.
As recently as June 30, he referred to Russian soldiers as heroes, and stated that the “special operations” in Ukraine are going according to plan.
“We declared a special military operation because there was no other way to explain to the West that it was a criminal act to drag Ukraine into NATO,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the BBC in June.
Russian officials also often claim that their military “denazifies” Ukraine, he wrote BBC.
The first two months Zelenska and the children spent at a secret address, far from the capital. She says she has rarely seen her husband since the end of February. In May, however, they were reunited in Kyiv for the first time.
– I chose not to leave Kyiv. Circumstances forced me. This war has made us live through terrible moments.
Reunited: In May, Olena Zelenska and Volodymyr Zelenskyj were photographed together for the first time after the war broke out, on the occasion of the funeral of Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk. Photo: Reuters / NTB
sea view
Impressions of the children
Zelenska admits that she felt a fear of not seeing friends and loved ones again, including her husband.
– Sometimes I woke up in the morning and thought: “What a nightmare I had last night”. But then I realized that it was not a nightmare, but reality. Our life, Zelenska continues.
Olena Zelenska and Vladimir Zlenskyij have two children together, a 17-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son.
Zelenska reveals that the war and the separation from her father have made an impression on them as well.
