2023-09-05 11:50:10
The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is ”a separate family”. Who has ”become a historical figure”, but remains a husband and a father. And it is in this role that his family, his wife Olena Zelenska and the children of the couple are ”missing”. The first lady herself recounted the impact that the war launched by Russia against Ukraine had on her family in an interview with the BBC. “It might seem a bit selfish, but I need my husband, not a historical figure, to be by my side,” Zelenska said, adding that “we stay strong, we have strength both emotionally and physically. And I’m sure we’ll make it together.”
Together, the president and his wife have already done a lot and in different fields. Sweethearts since high school, they worked side by side in television, he as a comedian and she as a screenwriter. But now ”we no longer live together, with my husband. The family is separated. We have the opportunity to see each other, but not as often as we would like. My son misses her father, “she says. Speaking of the couple’s children, the first lady says that” it pains me to see that they do not plan anything. At that age, they are young. My daughter is 19 years old. They dream of travel, new sensations, emotions. You don’t have these opportunities”.
On her husband, beyond what she defines as his “selfish” desire for a wife, Zelenska says that “he really has the energy, the willpower, the aspiration and the stubbornness to face this war”. And he reiterates: “I believe in him. we all need right now.” A moment in which it is ”necessary” to try to live ”in the existing conditions”, abandoning the secret places where she lived with her children at the beginning of the war and engaging in dialogue with international leaders, as well as in support of her people.
“I really hope that I can inspire someone, that I can give someone hope or advice. Or show by my example that we can live, work, move forward,” she said. Of course, she admits, ”no one can know what lies ahead. After all, no one could have imagined that in the twenty-first century in the heart of Europe such a war would break out, that it would be so cruel. A bloody war”. Not to be abandoned is the ”great hope for victory, but we don’t know when it will arrive. And this long wait, the constant stress, have their price”.
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