“No one takes my husband from me, not even the war.” Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, has had to spend the last two and a half months separated from her husband, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but her place remains firm beside him even during such a difficult time. Telling it myself, in a rare television interview. It is the second time since the war that the two have appeared together. The first a few days ago, when Olena and her husband in mourning clothes attended the funeral of the first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk in Kyiv. Previously, the First Lady remained in a secret location for a long time for security reasons, as she was Moscow’s number one target and therefore her family’s number two in the early days of the Zelenskyy invasion.
In the interview, Zelenskyy and his wife sit with two Ukrainian journalists at a round table, set for afternoon tea with cups, a ceramic teapot and biscuits. Zelensky wears the usual military uniform, his wife a beige jacket and a military green shirt. “Our family is destroyed, like every Ukrainian family,” explains Zelenska. “But no one can take my husband away from me, not even the war,” she replies resolutely to the journalist’s question as to whether the war somehow took it away from him. Although he then adds: “But yes, he lives for his work and we hardly ever see him. We didn’t see him at all for two and a half months. We just talked on the phone,” says the first lady, 44. , mother of two children aged 17 and 9. So thanks to television, which gives them another opportunity. “I’m very thankful for this opportunity because this interview allows us to spend time together,” says Olena, shifting her smiling gaze to her husband, who in turn laughs and adds, “Yes, a date on TV… Thanks.”
Almost three months have passed since the day war broke out, but Zelenska relives it as if it were yesterday: “I remember waking up outside with strange noises, as probably happened to everyone. It was dark, almost night, and I saw that Volodymyr was not near me. I went into the next room and he was already wearing a suit but no tie. I asked him, ‘What’s going on?’ And he replied: “It has begun”. I can’t describe the emotion, the fear, the amazement. He told me and left. After – he concludes – we haven’t seen each other for a long time”.
In recent months, Olena, a screenwriter originally from Kryvyi Rih, like Volodymyr, whom she met in college – she studied architecture, he reads – and then married in 2003, has been little seen in public (one of the few appearances, the surprise encounter with the wife of US President Jill Biden in a school in Ukraine), but continues her commitment with appeals and interviews, especially for injured, sick and refugee Ukrainian children. Children are the protagonists of a touching video that Zelenska has just published on social media to tell about the many Ukrainians who have fled to Poland and dream of returning to their country: “We will return – assures the First Lady – because there is nothing better than going home”.