Ukrainian First Lady speaks at WEF
Olena Selenska has a clear demand for the world
The wife of the Ukrainian president is increasingly becoming a diplomatic secret weapon. In her speech at the WEF, she is likely to repeat an old key requirement. She rarely sees her husband these days.
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Olena Zelenska has been married to Volodymyr Zelensky since 2003. The trained architect has been the First Lady of Ukraine since 2019.
Samuel Schumacherforeign reporter
She likes to stay in the background, said Olena Selenska (44) last summer in a conversation with the magazine “Vogue”. But the war in her home country forced the Ukrainian first lady into the limelight. As her husband’s representative, she traveled to Turkey to receive a warship, attended donor conferences in Paris and, in July – five months before her husband’s US trip – called for “weapons to be changed” before the American Congress in Washington to protect our home».
Olena Selenska’s next trip could be to Switzerland – surnames change according to gender in Ukrainian. On Wednesday it became public that she will be a speaker at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos GR. For security reasons, the organizers do not want to announce whether she is actually traveling to the Prättigau or just connecting via video.
Participant record broken: These top shots are coming to the WEF(01:32)
From show business to the diplomatic stage
The trained architect from the southern Ukrainian city of Krywyj Rih would never have dreamed that she would one day become her homeland’s diplomatic secret weapon. After her studies, she worked as a screenwriter for the TV production company of the then comedian Volodymyr Selenski (44), whom she had met when they were at school together. The two have a lot in common: both grew up speaking Russian and only later learned Ukrainian. They are both only children. And both once earned their money in show business.
Now Olena Selenska and her husband are fighting together for the survival of their homeland. While Selenski negotiates arms deliveries and travels to the Eastern Front, Selenska mainly takes care of rebuilding hospitals and supporting teachers in the war zone. The mother of two also supports Ukrainian museums with her foundation. Protecting one’s own culture, says Selenska, is one of the most important defense strategies against the Russians, who wanted to “wipe out the Ukrainian nation”.
Not coming to the WEF? “There are few reasons for him to travel to Switzerland”(05:12)
Selenska and Selenski live separately – for security reasons
It is unlikely that she will be accompanied by her husband on her possible visit to Switzerland. The two don’t even live together in Kyiv at the moment – for security reasons. It was particularly difficult for the two children Oleksandra (18) and Kyrylo (9), she told the “Bild” in the fall.
Your demand in Davos should therefore be the same as in Washington and Paris: “Send us weapons, more weapons, so that we can finally end this miserable war.”