Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska covers Vogue: ‘We’re looking forward to victory’

Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska covered the August issue of American Vogue. She is the wife of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They’ve known each other since high school, and they have two children together. Olena and their children were sent into hiding following the Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine – Russian forces were not only targeting President Zelenskyy, they were targeting his family. Husband and wife didn’t see each other for three months, but Olena has returned to the heavily fortified Kyiv, which is where the Vogue interview takes place. I’ve seen some people – Russian operatives, no doubt – question why the president and first lady would have time to pose for a Vogue cover shoot. I mean… they’re clearly doing it to persuade North American and European allies to continue to back their efforts in the still on-going war. There’s already widespread talk of how Ukraine should simply “give up” a huge chunk of the country to Russia. You can read the full Vogue piece here. Some highlights:

Olena on the war: “These have been the most horrible months of my life, and the lives of every Ukrainian. Frankly I don’t think anyone is aware of how we have managed emotionally.” What inspires her, she told me, is her fellow Ukrainians. “We’re looking forward to victory. We have no doubt we will prevail. And this is what keeps us going.”

The Ukrainian children: In early June, in one of her first public appearances since the invasion, Zelenska paid homage to some 200 Ukrainian children killed in the war, giving a speech to a crowd that included grieving parents outside Kyiv’s Saint Sophia Cathedral, its gold domes reaching to the early summer sky. (A month later, the number had risen to 300 children, she told me.) “The whole country knows your stories, and you are not alone,” she said that day. “You should know that you are important. You were the most important people for your children. So take care of yourself for them. They would like that.” Zelenska and the parents hung bells in the trees, one for each child. “The bells stood for the voices of the innocent children, so they would ring forever and be heard forever. I was in tears the whole hour I was there.”

The mass grave in Bucha: “The first weeks after the war broke out we were just shocked. After Bucha we understood it was a war intended to exterminate us all. A war of extermination.”

President Zelenskyy on his wife’s return to Kyiv: “I can do it for one part of our people, for a significant part. But for women and children, my wife being here sets an example. I believe that she plays a very powerful role for Ukraine, for our families, and for our women.”

President Zelenskyy on the importance of the war: “I will be very honest and maybe not very diplomatic: Gas is nothing. COVID, even COVID is nothing when you compare it to what’s going on in Ukraine. Just try to imagine what I’m talking about happening to your home, to your country. Would you still be thinking about gas prices or electricity prices?” The battle, he said, goes beyond Ukraine. “We are fighting for things that could happen in any country in the world. If the world allows this to happen, then it is not upholding its values. That’s why Ukraine needs support—significant support.”

President Zelenskyy on his wife: “Of course she is my love. But she is my greatest friend. Olena really is my best friend. She is also a patriot and she deeply loves Ukraine. It’s true. And she is an excellent mother.”

[From Vogue]

The piece is heartbreaking and Olena and her husband clearly have PTSD from this still ongoing ordeal. I’m glad that Olena returned and that she’s now with her husband, and I can absolutely see how her presence in Kyiv is probably the best thing for his mental health, as well as being massively important symbolically for Ukrainians, and for the Ukrainian women who have taken up arms to defend their home.

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Cover & IG courtesy of Vogue.

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