Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska told JEE News that Ukraine would endure the coming winter despite blackouts caused by Russian missiles, and continue what she described as a war of global ideologies. gives, because “there can be no peace without victory”. .
We meet in a storied city where winter’s chill is biting, where charming street lamps are dimming, where buildings are dark and cold amid blackouts as Russia attacks Ukraine’s energy grid. The Ukrainian people have won praise for standing up to Russia’s blistering attack. But this is another painful test of patience.
“We’re ready to put up with it,” insists Olena Zelenska as we sit in a heavily guarded compound inside a sandbagged maze of buildings in Kyiv.
“We’ve had so many terrible challenges, so many victims, so much destruction, that a blackout isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to us.” He cited a recent survey in which 90% of Ukrainians said they were willing to live with two to three years of power shortages if they could see the possibility of joining the EU.
It seems like a very long cold road, and she knows it.
“You know, running a marathon is easy when you know how many kilometers there are,” she says. In this case, though, Ukrainians don’t know how far they have to go. “Sometimes it can be very difficult,” she says. “But there are some new emotions that help keep us going.”
All Ukrainians will become stronger because of this war, the First Lady of Ukraine predicts brilliantly.
Street – Ukraine’s version of 10 Downing. street The building was the backdrop for President Zelensky’s famous speech to a rally of Ukrainians on February 26, which was filmed on his phone two days after Russian tanks crossed the border. “I am here, we will not surrender our weapons,” he declared.
The night before, in one of what became overnight addresses, he announced in another selfie video that Russia had “designated me as target number one and my family as target number two”.
“And so it was from day one and it continues now,” Olena Zelenska recalled, her words barely concealing the tremendous stress that her family, like all Ukrainian families now broken up, went through. have been.
