Ukraine first lady hasn’t seen her husband President Zelenskyy for a month

Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wife, said she has been separated from her husband for over a month since Russia’s invasion of their country.

“Volodymyr and his team actually live in the President’s office,” Zelenska told CNN in an interview published Wednesday. “Due to the danger, my children and I were forbidden to stay there. So, for more than a month we communicate only by phone.”

The couple have a 17-year-old daughter, Sasha, and 9-year-old son, Kyrylo together, both of whom are staying with their mother.

“Fortunately, the children are with me,” she said. “We are just talking about everything that is happening. When I watch the interviews of the children from Bucha or hear the stories of my friends about their children, I realize that children understand everything no better than adults.”

When asked about her involvement in supporting those devastated by Russia’s invasion, children are at the center of Zelenska’s efforts.

“We evacuate our most vulnerable — children with [cancer], [those with] disability and orphans — to countries that agree to accept them for treatment and rehabilitation. The main route passes through Poland, and from there to other European countries,” she said.

“We are importing incubators to Ukraine to support newborns in cities that are being bombed by Russians,” she added. “In many hospitals there are power outages, and the lives of children are in danger. Therefore, we need devices that save lives without interruption.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have been forced from their homes since the start of the Russian invasion.

“They have been forced to leave everything behind: their homes, their schools and often their family members,” Manuel Fontaine, emergency programs director for the United Nations children’s agency, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday.

The figure includes children who were displaced internally as they left hard-hit areas and those who have fled the country since the war began.

More than 90 per cent of the 4.5 million Ukrainians who fled the country are women and children, the program director said.

Fontaine, who went to Ukraine last week, said of the invasion: “In my 31 years as a humanitarian, I have rarely seen so much damage caused in so little time.”

Children “have been hurt in the very places where they should be safest — their homes, emergency shelters, even hospitals,” Fontaine said.

At one hospital he visited in Zaporizhzhia, he was told by the facility’s director that doctors have treated 22 children who had lost limbs because of the violence.

–The World News

With additional reporting from The Washington Post

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