Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska gave an interview to Vogue Ukraine: “We asked to close the sky above us so that Ukrainians would not perish. But NATO considered this to be a direct conflict with Russia. So, can I say now that Russia alone is to blame for further deaths?”
Vogue: Could you describe the earliest days of the invasion? What do you remember most clearly?
Olena Zelenska: I remember the beginning very well. It was a normal working day and evening: the children returning from school, the usual household chores, preparing for the next school day… We had been tense. There had been a lot of talk, everywhere, about a possible invasion. But until the last minute it was impossible to believe that this would happen…in the twenty-first century? In the modern world? I woke up, sometime between 4 and 5 a.m., because of a clunk. I didn’t immediately realize it was an explosion. I didn’t understand what it could be. My husband wasn’t in bed. But when I got up, I saw him at once, already dressed, in a suit as usual (this was the last time I’d see him in a suit and a white shirt—from then on it was military). “It started.” That’s all he said.
I wouldn’t say there was panic. Confusion perhaps. “What should we do with the children?” “Wait,” he said, “I’ll let you know. Just in case, gather essentials and documents.” And he left the house.
You have obviously been thinking about the safety of your family–even as you have been seeing violence being done to ordinary Ukrainian citizens. Can you describe your mix of personal and civic feelings?
The war immediately combined the personal and public. And this is probably the fatal mistake of the tyrant who attacked us. We are all Ukrainians first, and then everything else. He wanted to divide us, to shatter us, to provoke internal confrontation, but it is impossible to do this with Ukrainians. When one of us is tortured, raped, or killed, we feel that we all are being tortured, raped, or killed. We do not need propaganda to feel civic consciousness, and to resist. It is this personal anger and pain, which we all feel, that instantly activates the thirst to act, to resist aggression, to defend our freedom. Everyone does this the way they can: Soldiers with weapons in their hands, teachers by continuing to teach, doctors by conducting complex surgeries under attacks. All have become volunteers—artists, restaurateurs, hairdressers—as barbarians try to take over our country. I’ve seen this raise the deepest patriotic feelings in our children. Not only my children, but all the children of Ukraine. They will grow up to be patriots and defenders of their homeland.
What challenges have women in your country, in particular, faced as Russia invaded?
I want all the people in the world to understand that Ukrainian women lived a peaceful, modern life, the way Vogue’s readers in every country live. Actually, they were your readers, because there is Vogue Ukraine. They were not preparing bomb shelters for missile attacks. But from the first days, after Russian missiles began hitting residential buildings in different cities, it became clear that the Russia does not have mercy for peaceful lives. All Ukrainians stopped feeling safe. We had to learn how to quickly gather loved ones at the sound of the siren and go down to the subway or the nearest basement.
By the third day of the war, a Ukrainian child had been born in a bomb shelter. And after that thousands of women have had to give birth in bomb shelters, because we’ve seen what can happen to maternity hospitals like the one in Mariupol, which the Russians bombed. There is a problem treating children as well, especially those with serious diseases. Mothers and grandmothers have been living in hospitals with such children for months. And now we all must take them abroad for treatment.
Women had to leave occupied cities—such as Bucha and Gostomel, risking their lives under fire—with children and the elderly, often on foot, often without men, because men would not be released by the occupiers. The world saw this in early March as people crossed an exploded bridge from the city of Irpin.
And now as these cities are de-occupied, we know more about what Ukrainian women have faced: complete insecurity, the threat of violence. An international investigation must have a say here.
And how many women remain in the still-occupied cities of Kherson, Melitopol, Berdyansk? They can’t even tell their relatives what is happening to them, because there is no connection, or any contact they make would be traced.
There are tens of thousands of women with children in the ruins of Mariupol. And one can only imagine what a nightmare they are going through, searching for food under fire for a month now, because humanitarian aid is not allowed in.
Some four million women and children have migrated and are now in other countries. And being a migrant is hard both mentally and physically. Because you must start all over again.
What is it like to live when you can’t even wear your personal clothes? How to explain to a child why she is not sleeping in her bed? This is a test you would not wish on anyone.
You and your husband have implored nations to do more to respond to this invasion—and specifically you have called on the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone. Do you still feel that is the right action for the U.S. to take?
Yes, we have asked, officially and unofficially. As has every Ukrainian, on their social networks, at protests. When the Russian siege of Mariupol began, it became clear that Russia was not only firing rockets, but also bombing from the air. One of the bombs fell on a theater where more than a thousand people were hiding. Some three hundred people died there. I know, for example, of a family that lost their son, their daughter, and a granddaughter. Only the grandparents and the eldest girl remained alive. How do they live after that?
We asked to close the sky above us so that Ukrainians would not perish. But NATO considered this to be a direct conflict with Russia. So, can I say now that Russia alone is to blame for further deaths? Rhetorical question. You ask if this is the right move for the United States. I say—and this is not only true for the United States—give a tough answer to the actions of the aggressor or the aggressor will be encouraged to move. Russia knows that the West will not cover the sky, and this fact encourages it to commit atrocities. The democratic world must be united and give a tough response, thus showing that in the twenty-first century there is no place for killing civilians and encroaching on foreign territory. I saw a caricature of NATO and world organizations watching a house falling with UKRAINE written on it. Perhaps this was an exaggeration—because Ukraine does get weapons. But we also need protection! It is true that such protection is given to those who have gone abroad. Millions of our women and children now receive help from both governments and millions of ordinary people in the European Union. I am infinitely grateful for this.
You can read the full interview here.