Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska says conceding territory to Russia would be the wrong move and would not stop Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ms. Zelenska, speaking to ABC’s “Good Morning America” in her first solo U.S. television interview, said conceding territory is “like conceding a freedom.”
“Even if we would consider territories, the aggressor would not stop at that,” she said. “He [Mr. Putin] would continue pressing. He would continue launching more and more steps forward, more and more attacks against our territory.”
Ms. Zelenska said support from the U.S. and other countries is “really important, because you feel you’re not alone,” and that American first lady Jill Biden’s surprise visit to western Ukraine last month was “highly appreciated.”
Ukraine’s first lady spoke in personal terms about hiding with her two children apart from her husband, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, since the start of the war in late February. She said her 9-year-old son often asks when the war will end.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think any Ukrainian would be able to answer that question,” she said.
Ms. Zelenska is happy the world is getting to see Mr. Zelenskyy’s “true identity” as he wins global plaudits for steering the country through Russia’s invasion.
“There’s one trait about Volodymyr that’s very important — he likes to change things around himself,” she said. “And that’s why I clearly realized that there wouldn’t be anything even closely related to the word boring when you were staying with him.”
“If one day he would say that, ’OK, I’m going to go to space as an astronaut,’ then, well, I would have to fly with him,” she said in the ABC interview, which was interrupted by an air raid siren at one point.
Ms. Zelenska praised the bravery of the Ukrainian people, including a maternity nurse in Mariupol who continued to deliver babies despite rampant shelling and a 15-year-old girl who helped to evacuate four people from an eastern Ukrainian village despite her own legs being wounded.
“I always thought that Ukrainian women are the best. And I was really proud of how the Ukrainian women behaved themselves during the war,” she said. “Now, I’m proud of the fact that the whole world has seen the true face of the Ukrainian women.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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