Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, was featured on Vogue’s Instagram on Wednesday along with her husband and President Volodymyr Zelensky. The photos were released nearly 150 days after Russian forces launched an attack against Ukraine.
Zelenska, 44, also recently travelled to Washington DC and spoke the US Congress about the war back home. “We want no more airstrikes. No more missile strikes,” Zelenska told Republicans and Democrats Wednesday, as an overhead screen displayed the war’s youngest victims.
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Who is Olena Zelenska?
Olena Zelenska was raised in the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, the same as Volodymyr Zelensky. She met her future husband in 1995, when she was pursuing architecture at the state university.
Olena and Volodymyr dated for roughly eight years before they got married in 2003 and moved to Kyiv, Ukraine’s national capital. The couple has two children: daughter Oleksandra and son Kyrylo.
By this time, Volodymyr Zelensky had become mildly popular and Olena joined him in the comedy business. She decided to drop architecture and started screenwriting for her husband’s shows. She also worked for Ukrainian production company Studio Quarter 95, Daily Mail reported.
Olena was also part of the screenwriting crew of Servant of the People, a political satire comedy show in which Volodymyr Zelensky played the Ukrainian President.
Speaking to Vogue magazine the same year her husband was elected, Zelenska said she herself by nature was no teller of jokes, and “a non-public person.”
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But as first lady, “I found for myself arguments in favor of publicity. One of them is the opportunity to draw people’s attention to important social issues,” Zelenska said then.
Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly forgot to tell Olena about his bid to become Ukraine’s President. She later found out through social media.