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.”
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.
Cover & IG courtesy of Vogue.
With all sincerity, thoughts and prayers to the people of the Ukraine. Also, monetary donations for care.
Olena really is a beautiful woman, inside and out. She reminds me of Queen Raina.
Yes to the comparison to Raina!
Stunning cover. Incredible people, praying for peace and safety of Ukraine everyday
I find those pictures of (what I assume is) the presidential palace with the sandbags so powerful. News cycles some and go and people get fatigue so they need to keep talking and keep making their point, we have got to help them.
I cried reading about the bells for the children at Saint Sophia Cathedral. My heart breaks for Ukraine
Is her last name Zelenska just coincidentally similar to her husbands or is it like a feminine form of his name? I feel like that’s a stupid question but cultures have different norms.
ETA. I clicked the article. “Surnames are gendered in Slavic languages.”
I learned something new today and now I wonder how that works when someone identifies as gender non conforming.
In some Slavic languages, yes, but not all.
And I’m not sure what happens when people identify as gender non-conforming, but there has been a push in some countries (Czech Republic for example) to do away with the entire practice of gendering surnames for women so I would imagine a solution would be for someone to simply keep their surname in the masculine, which is considered gender-neutral? It’s definitely an interesting question though 🙂
@novaroux – Thanks for the info! More questions are percolating. If a lone parent is traveling internationally with their underage child of a different gender, does it raise eyebrows that their passports have slightly different last names? I assume most customs officials are trained in the patterns of different language families, but we’ve all heard ridiculous questions people have been asked by less informed customs officials. So it seems like that’s a real thing that could happen.
This is also an issue for those of us born abroad. Females are stuck with the male versions.
@bettyrose When it comes to travelling, I don’t think there are any issues, it’s similar enough that everyone knows what the deal is, at least in Europe. I don’t know what the situation is in the US or around the world? I always thought this was just something everyone knew, it’s never occurred to me it would be seen as unusual.
@novaroux – I don’t know how I wasn’t familiar with this before, but that’s on me. Once as a kid, I was coming back from Canada with my step mom who had a different last name from me (she didn’t change her name), while my dad stayed on in Canada for work. We had to explain the different last names. It wasn’t a big deal, especially not back then and for travel within North America, but that’s what made me think of the last name thing.
My mom crossed the border into the States no problem with her boyfriend and my sister’s two First Nations children. Going back to Canada they got stopped at the border. The two children had one last name, my mom a second and her friend a third. Border patrol decided my mom and her friend were smuggling Mexican children into Canada. By the time my sister got to the border to pick up her children her daughter was literally hysterical. My niece and nephew had been separated from my mom, and with a stranger for the two hours it took my sister to leave work, go home and gather ID and get to the border. They were two and four. It was a day alright.
(It was the early 90’s)
It depends of the letter the surname ends of. In Polish if male surname ends with i (Kowalski) then his wife and daughter will have surnames ending with an a (Kowalska)
It’s a great piece. I think it’s important to remind people – us Europeans especially – that it’s about the life and death of an entire country. And about many other things but that would go too far here.
However, I do have one quibble. Gas is not nothing. Can Germans – my people – survive with less gas? Yes. Can we conserve it? Oh we haven’t even tried. But it’s not the gas. It’s what happens if it runs out and our economy tanks. If families with children can’t pay their utilities anymore or if there is simply not enough gas to heat everyone’s home. Apparently that’s not a real danger but we’ll see. People will only stand in solidarity for so long if this happens. Europe has seen a surge of far right parties in recent years and to think that those won’t see another opportunity and possibly succeed is naive. France escaped a far right president by almost nothing. Those people sure as hell won’t support Ukraine.
We’ve made insane mistakes regarding our energy infrastructure, don’t get me started. I’m livid. I’ve been livid since the German government destroyed the solar industry in this country and continued to subsidize coal and then schmoozed Putin. I could scream. We’re worried abou heating homes in winter and still don’t have a speed limit. Inflation is soaring, yet energy companies are raking in record profits. I’m so angry.
But no, it’s not just gas.
No country should ever willingly cede part of its territory and population to another, period.
And I agree with Olena in that this war is about extermination. My great-grandfather escaped from Ukraine in the 1880-1890s with his siblings and parents. They escaped Russian persecution and death. His descendants get to see this play over again because Russia will never leave Ukraine alone. To them, Ukraine is their backyard, it belongs to them, no matter how much ukrainians do not want to be russian nor part of that country.
I have donated $ and resources to the ukranian embassy in Buenos Aires. I wish I could do more.
Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the heroes!
Ukraine will win, in no small part due to the leadership of their president & first lady. I think there’s a good chance they will also eventually regain Crimea (a goal Zelenskyy suggested yesterday, I believe). The Russian military was never organized or particularly well equipped–they were just bodies & equipment intended to carry out a genocide. You could see how terrified Putin’s advisors were in the televised meeting announcing the invasion in February. Putin is obsessed with restoring the pre-Soviet Russian empire. He may well succeed in taking Russia itself back to the pre-Soviet days.
This is such a beautiful, powerful Vogue cover. I’m sending all of my thoughts to Ukraine.
@Mooney Ukraine will not surrender & Russia never had the capacity to occupy the whole country anyway. Russia is losing, but no one can say that to Putin. The Russian economy is being very hard hit by the targeted sanctions, regardless of what state TV is allowed to tell the public.
The Vogue cover is one of many ways to keep the Ukrainian plight in the minds of allies. The “optics” are to keep doing what they’re doing every day, plus making sure to highlight the ongoing conflict in the media.
This. The Vogue cover is HUGE, and it will hit the mailboxes of people who have the resources to donate to Ukraine. The optics of every government that is NOT supporting Ukraine is the problem, the Vogue cover is clever use of the media.
On a superficial note, Olena Zelenska is stunning.
While I wish the Ukrainians all the best, and my heart breaks for the atrocities of war and the innocent civilians…this is so breathtakingly terrible for every other marginalized or attacked country, population, and religion. So out of touch – like most of the coverage has been. I don’t remember Afghanis, Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians, Kurds, Armenians, Yemenis, Somalians, ET CETERA over decades of aggression and war ever being given an ounce of compassion. Vogue said the blonde victims are more worthy. GTFOH with this.
Sadly, circles of empathy are a real thing, as horrible as it sounds. People care more about this because it’s in our backyard and the atrocities are being committed by a regime that poses a threat to all of us.
European countries that were destroyed in the wars of the 90’s did not get this same level of empathy from the rest of the world because the aggressor wasn’t so powerful and the Western way of life wasn’t threatened, simple as that.
In one part of this whole story though, Europe has shown incredible ugliness and hypocrisy, and that is the treatment of Ukrainian refugees compared to people coming from the Middle East. Don’t get me wrong, everyone fleeing Ukraine should be welcomed with open arms wherever they go, but so should everyone fleeing from every other war. What is happening in Europe instead is hideous and makes me ashamed to be European.
There was one photo that was questionable. It wasn’t shown here. It looked a little Vogue Goes to War Chic. But mostly I think this was a good idea. All publicity helps. People have short attention spans when something isn’t present all the time.
Remarkable pair. My only solace is that Russia will lose.