It is a very short parenthesis, during which they gave themselves up to a few confidences.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife Olena Zelenska appeared on the July 26 digital cover of the US edition of
Vogue
magazine .
And it was in front of the lens of American photographer Annie Leibowitz that they posed, in the presidential palace or in front of the wreckage of a bombed plane.
Between tenderness and anxiety, faces marked by war, they confided in their meeting, their life since the presidential election in 2019 but also on the conflict that has been raging in Ukraine for five months.
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A life turned upside down
In the article that accompanies the photos, Olena Zelenska details how her life has changed since the conflict began in February.
This television producer who became first lady has, in a few months, welcomed Jill Biden, her American counterpart, in a refugee camp in Ukraine, traveled to Washington to plead the cause of her country before the American Congress, took the public speaking to pay tribute to Ukrainian children who died in the conflict, and launched initiatives to care for his compatriots suffering from the trauma of war.
Olena Zelenska also confides in her fear of being targeted, as well as her family, by the Russian army.
She and her children, Oleksandra, 18, and Kyrylo, 9, have changed homes several times since the start of the war.
The first lady has been trying to keep the angst at bay by working and caring for them, including helping her son take distance learning courses.
"I didn't have a spare moment in my day to sit down and start having dark thoughts," she explains.
She specifies that her family remains, like that of many of her fellow citizens, dispersed: “He [President Zelensky, editor's
note
] could not see his children, for security reasons.
From this point of view, it is much more difficult for him.
He suffers.
And my children too, because they can't see each other.
A united couple
When her husband, a 44-year-old ex-actor, ran for president three years ago, Olena Zelenska, also 44, always supported him, despite her lack of taste for the front of the scene: "I respected his choice and I understood that it was an important step for him.
At the same time, I felt that my life and that of my family were going to change quite radically”.
In video, a Ukrainian couple gets married on the defense line in kyiv
But what she didn't know was that Russia would invade her territory a few years later.
An event that made their couple stronger: “To begin with, she [Olena Zelenska, NDLR] has a strong personality.
She's probably stronger than she thought.
And this war, in fact, all wars probably reveal qualities that one did not think one had,” President Zelensky told
Vogue
magazine .
Before adding: “Of course, it is my love.
And she's my best friend.
She is also a patriot and she deeply loves Ukraine.
It's true.
And she's a great mother."