After Russia missiles started whistling into Kyiv in the early hours of 24 February, Olena Zelenska spent months in hiding in secret locations with her children. She emerged on 8 May – Mothers’ Day this year in Ukraine, and many other countries – when she joined the US First Lady Jill Biden at a shelter for the displaced in the relatively safe western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

Now she keeps popping up in speeches on zoom, or at times in person, with her smartly styled hair and classic shirts or jackets, with a shy smile which gives way to strongly worded speeches which come from “a mother, a daughter, a first lady”.

When the US Congress gave a standing ovation, twice, for a Ukrainian leader in July, it wasn’t President Zelensky at the podium – he hasn’t travelled since Russia invaded – it was his wife. And the first foreign first lady granted the privilege of addressing the US legislature never liked public speaking.

“I was scared,” she admits. “But I understood this mission… it was impossible to miss this chance.”
She emphasised, as she always does, the profound suffering of Ukrainian children, condemning what she called Russia’s “hunger games”. Then, she went much further, asking the US Congress to send weapons.

Had a first lady, without official powers, crossed a line? “It was not politics, it was what I had to say,” she says. “I asked for weapons, not to attack, but to prevent our children from being killed in their homes.”

Olena Zelenska is adamant that Ukrainian society was changing even before war overwhelmed everything, and that this change is now accelerating. “Kitchen, children, church – this is not for our society any more. A woman who has lived through this will not take a step back.”

Her newly formed Olena Zelenska Foundation deals with the toughest of challenges including mental health and domestic violence. As much as war can toughen individuals, it can also tear them apart.

In a reflection of the hardening public view as allegations and evidence of Russian war crimes keep emerging, as entire cities and towns are pummelled to the ground, she insists, “We cannot betray those who are now in occupied territories. We cannot leave people who are waiting for liberation.”

She hastens to add: “This is not a political position of the president or the government. This is the position of Ukrainians.”