"These have been the most horrible months of my life, and the lives of every Ukrainian," she said, speaking her country’s language through a translator. "Frankly I don’t think anyone is aware of how we have managed emotionally." What inspires her, she told me, is her fellow Ukrainians. "We’re looking forward to victory. We have no doubt we will prevail. And this is what keeps us going."
I met Zelenska—surnames are gendered in Slavic languages—deep inside the presidential office compound, a heavily guarded place I had traveled long hours to reach. With Ukraine’s airspace closed to civilian flights, I took an overnight train from Poland, through landscapes that have seen some of the 20th century’s worst horrors. Once inside the compound, I passed multiple security checkpoints and a labyrinth of blacked-out corridors lined with sandbags and soldiers. Life in wartime.
From the start, this war has been fought both on the ground and in the information space, where Zelenskyy—savvy, telegenic, down-to-earth in his famous olive-drab T-shirts—has excelled. Now, in a crucial new phase, with Ukraine battling for international support and fresh military aid, the first lady’s role is no longer minor or ornamental. After spending the first months of the war in hiding, Zelenska, who, like her husband, is 44, has emerged into public view to become a face of her nation—a woman’s face, a mother’s face, an empathetic human face. If Zelenskyy leads a nation of civilians who overnight turned into combatants, she has visibly carried their emotional toll.
