yle: No normal life
In a rare interview with Yle's Hanna Visala, Olena Zelenska talks about what the war has done to her family.
Hanna Visala
A car whizzes past roadblocks, sandbags and soldiers standing guard. We stop at two checkpoints to show our identity papers and equipment.
We finally reach our destination, the Ukrainian Presidential Office. In this heavily guarded building in the heart of Kiev, we get a rare interview. Ukraine's First Lady, the wife of Volodymyr Zelensky, has agreed to be interviewed by Yle.
- I'm fine, thanks for asking, says Olena Zelenska with a smile.
The question is an important one for Olena Zelenska. Zelenska runs a mental health programme called How Are You, and she asks the question to the Ukrainians she meets every day.
- I try to ask people how they are doing as often as I can, she says.
When Russia launched a major offensive in Ukraine just over two years ago, Olena Zelenska found herself in a role she had not expected.
The renowned screenwriter, who had written the role of her actor husband's President in the popular Ukrainian TV series Servant of the People, had suddenly become the wife of the President of a country at war.
The Zelensky's were thus already partners in a previous life, then in the TV production business.
- I remember waking up the morning after the attack. I thought it was all just a bad dream until I realised it was real, a terrible reality. It was a shock for all of us, Olena Zelenska, wife of the Ukrainian President, now recalls the beginning of the war.
She says there is not a day when the war is not on her mind. At moments, she says she is still able to live almost normally.
- When I help my son with his homework or we take care of our pets. But when the air raid siren goes off, we go back to reality, Zelenska says.
Like thousands of other Ukrainians, Zelenska and her children wake up to the sound of night-time shrieks. Zelenska describes the bomb shelter used by her family as "just an ordinary basement".
When the alarm is over, Zelenska returns with her children, Oleksandra, 19, and Kyrylo, 11, to their beds to sleep.
- In the morning, I wake the children for school, and we get on with life, but the pressure of war is ever-present. Life is not normal.
This Instagram post shows how life was still normal for the family before the war.
The war has torn apart thousands of families. The Zelensky family has also been forced to live apart because of the war. For the first two months, President Zelenskyi could not see his family at all.
The family is still living apart: the mother and children with each other and the father elsewhere.
Married for more than 20 years, communication between the couple is mainly limited to phone calls, sometimes video chats. However, they can now visit each other at least occasionally. And so it was today, just before the interview.
- My husband unexpectedly came to greet me in my office. We saw each other for ten minutes, says Olena Zelenska with a smile.
Commuting together provides a momentary relief.
- Even though the trips are busy and short, it feels like we are travelling together," says Zelenska.
My son, 11, is a military expert
The Zelenskyis' children spent their childhood and adolescence in the midst of war. Oleksandra, the first-born of the multidisciplinary parents, has followed in her father's footsteps and is studying law. The former TV star and current President also studied law. Olena Zelenska is an architect by training.
Olena Zelenska says that her daughter Oleksandra is now able to meet her friends.
And how often do the children see their father? Very rarely," says Zelenska.
- Then the children take every minute of his attention. The daughter talks about her studies, asks for advice, and the son clings to him, says Zelenska.
Zelenska mourns the fact that her children and all other Ukrainian children are missing out on the precious years of their youth and childhood.
- My daughter's daily routines are related to her studies, but she has no plans for the future. It is sad for me as a mother, says Zelenska.
According to her mother, her son Kyrylo has become almost a military expert.
- He knows all the types of missiles that Russia launches at us. He can also calculate their speed, says Zelenska.
As a mother, she would love to be proud of one of her child's other skills, she says.
- I wish my son could be interested in music, art, sports and not dream of being a military assistant or an air raid warden.
Arms aid has also been on Olena Zelenska's mind lately. Russia has got the upper hand in the war, and anti-aircraft missiles are dwindling by the day.
Relief is evident on the face of Ukraine's First Lady when the talk turns to the arms aid package finally approved by the US.
- It is a huge achievement. It really gives strength and hope. I thank everyone who worked to make it happen, says Zelenska.
Although the US arms package will not solve the war, it brings hope and a message that Ukraine has not been abandoned.
- It means that it will be easier for us to withstand bombardments and protect our people.
The job of the spouse of the President of a country at war is not an easy one. The spouse must stand by the people, create hope, represent and humbly ask for help from other countries.
Zelenska says she has heard countless stories of survival and countless sad stories, too. She spends almost all of her time helping her country to survive at a time when global war fatigue is beginning to show. Where does she get her strength from?
- When I succeed in repairing what the war has shattered and ruined. When I meet people, she responds.
Children kidnapped by Russia
Zelenska considers the most horrifying phenomenon of the war to be children stolen by Russia.
The Ukrainian authorities estimate that more than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been abducted by the Russians since the war began. Entire orphanages have been emptied, according to Ukraine.
According to the UN, this is a war crime. Ukraine has so far managed to return only 380 missing children.
- Some of the children have managed to self-report, use the telephone or internet and have been able to contact NGOs that have helped them, said Zelenska.
Zelenska has met children who have escaped from Russia. They have told her how school education in Russia is propaganda. Children are being trained to be Russian.
- They are taught that Ukraine does not exist. That no one is looking for them. It is psychological brainwashing. These children's lives are being destroyed.
According to Zelenska, orphaned children can disappear completely because Russia changes the spelling of their names. Names that look the same in Ukrainian and Russian are pronounced differently.
- When a name is entered in the Russian register according to the Russian pronunciation, the child can no longer be found by name, explains Zelenska.
- We also have information that Ukrainian boys aged 18 have been forced to join the ranks of the Russian army. It is terrible.
Ukraine has formed an international alliance with Canada to repatriate Ukrainian children.
- We are trying to create mechanisms to put pressure on Russia to provide information about the children and how to get them home, says Zelenska.
We do not want to return to the Soviet Union
Zelenska remembers when Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in December 1991. She was 13 years old at the time.
- I remember the referendum on independence. Almost everyone wanted it. We got freedom and looked to the future with optimism.
And now, more than 30 years later, Ukraine has to fight for that freedom. Zelenska sighs.
- We don't want to go back to the Soviet reality, where there were no rights and no freedoms.
How does Olena Zelenska believe it will all end, and where does she see herself in five years' time?
- We do not know when the suffering will end. But I believe in the victory of Ukraine because it is the right thing to happen. Because that is how things should be in a just world.
Only then, she says, will it be time for the second question.
- Then, I start dreaming about what will happen in five years.
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