From News Nation:
“Olena
Zelenska, Ukraine first lady, on high-profile US trip”
Ukraine’s
first lady, Olena Zelenska, met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on
Monday as she began a series of high-profile appearances in Washington that
will include a session with U.S. counterpart Jill Biden. Blue and yellow
Ukrainian flags flew alongside American ones on Pennsylvania Avenue as Zelenska
headed for her first announced event in the United States, the meeting with
Blinken. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the secretary of state
assured Zelenska of the United States’ commitment to Ukraine. Blinken also
commended her for her work with civilians dealing with trauma and other damage
from the war.
The first lady
also met Monday with Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Power’s agency has given billions of dollars to support Ukraine’s government
and to humanitarian needs, and is working to ease a global food shortage
aggravated by Russia’s war. The State Department announced and then canceled a
planned brief appearance by Blinken and Zelenska before photographers there.
The low-key arrival reflects that Zelenska is not traveling as an official
representative of the government of her husband, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenska
studied architecture in college but worked as a comedy scriptwriter, including
for Zelenskyy, who was a comedian with a popular television show before winning
the presidency in 2019. During the war, Zelenskyy has won admiration from
Ukrainians and Ukraine’s supporters abroad by staying put in the capital, Kyiv,
after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his attack on Ukraine i n
February. Zelenska largely disappeared with the couple’s two children during
the first months after the invasion. In an interview with Time magazine this
month, she described the war forcing her to shelter away from Zelenskyy for
security reasons from the first hours of Russia’s bombing. Their children, like
other Ukrainians, largely have seen Zelenskyy since then in nightly video
addresses he makes to the country.
Zelenska
emerged from seclusion May 8 to greet Jill Biden, who was making an unannounced
visit to western Ukraine. The two first ladies met then at a school, where they
hugged, talked, and joined schoolchildren making tissue-paper bears as gifts
for Mother’s Day. Zelenska has taken a higher public profile since that
meeting. That includes giving more newspaper interviews about Ukraine’s
struggles and about her projects during the conflict. She has promoted
counseling for the millions of Ukrainians now dealing with grief and trauma. She
meets with Jill Biden at the White House on Tuesday and will speak in the
congressional auditorium at the Capitol to lawmakers on Wednesday. Her husband
received standing ovations from congressional members in a video address to
lawmakers in the same auditorium earlier in the war. Ukrainian officials did
not immediately respond to questions Monday about the schedule of her visit.
^ While Putin
is in Iran making deals with another devil Ukrainian First Lady Zelenska is in
the US. It's literally a tale of good vs. evil. ^
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