by Francesco Battistini, our correspondent in Kyiv
The interview is only the second joint public appearance of the Zelenskyjs since the beginning of the conflict: We haven’t seen each other for two and a half months, my family is destroyed like any Ukrainian family
Tomorrow is three months. And Olena Zelenska sees everything again, that dawn of February 24: 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 up?’” And he replied, ‘started’. I can’t describe the emotions. fear, amazement. He told me that and left. After that we didn’t see each other for a long time.
From First Lady to Lady of Iron (and Fire). Olena Zelenska is going on television for the first time with her husband as President and takes it not least with irony, she wrote the Zelensky comedian’s sketches in another life and now thanks the BBC for bringing them all together. .. two at a table, with a cup of scones: this interview allows us to spend time together … (yes, a TV date … laughs the President of Ukraine, sideways, thanks, really!) . What a luxury: But yes, he lives for his work and we can no longer see him in the family…. Also because Volodymyr Zelensky was the number one target for the Russians and Olena with the two boys, Oleksandra and Kyrylo, 17 and 9 years old, target number two. He in the bunker, she’s hiding somewhere: We haven’t seen him at all for two and a half months. We only spoke on the phone. Our broken family, like every Ukrainian family. To put it bluntly: Nobody takes my husband from me, not even the war.
Separated in war, Volodymyr and Olena were always inseparable in peacetime. Born in 1978, lives parallel and same age since university in Kryvi Rig: the young and stubborn Ze, who had taken eight years to snatch her from a friend and get her to say yes; Olena Kiyashko, who in the end even agreed to be baptized in an Orthodox church as an adult in order to marry him. He, who became increasingly popular with his shows, she, who gave up being an architect to follow him to the Kvartal 95 studios. She was taking care of the little boy backstage who was just starting elementary school. At first, Olena did not welcome the idea of Zelensky leaving television for politics: I was totally against it. And I told him very aggressively. I saw the difficulties. It didn’t even seem like a project to me: it was a total change of direction in our lives.
However, she could not have imagined such a development of the script: Before this interview, she last saw her husband a few days ago at the funeral of the first Ukrainian President Kravchuk. I’ve always hoped to stay in the shadows, Olena once said, but when your husband’s doing this job there are duties you can’t delegate to anyone: First, to keep your cool in a trench like this. The First Lady succeeds: We will be back, she now writes on social media, because there is nothing better than going home. Longing for a normal life: I will go back to my school. To my cup. To my chestnuts. To my relatives. We are unlucky to have a neighbor demonstrating brotherhood with rockets and terror… Once Olena wore her Piaget chronographs on cream suits. Today he bites into the minutes to keep the family together in the darkest hour.
May 22, 2022 (Modification May 22, 2022 | 22:42)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED