Ukrainian first lady arrives in US for high-profile meetings

Olena Zelenska meets with Blinken, plans to reunite with Jill Biden and address Congress, though wife of war-torn country’s president isn’t traveling as representative of Kyiv

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday as she began a series of high-profile appearances in Washington that will include a session with US 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 US 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 Zelensky.

Zelenska studied architecture in college but worked as a comedy scriptwriter, including for Zelensky, who was a comedian with a popular television show before winning the presidency in 2019.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, right, and his wife Olena Zelenska cast their ballots at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Kiev, Ukraine on July 21, 2019. (AP/Evgeniy Maloletka)

During the war, Zelensky 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 Zelensky for security reasons from the first hours of Russia’s bombing. Their children, like other Ukrainians, largely have seen Zelensky since then in nightly video addresses he makes to the country.

Zelenska emerged from seclusion on 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.

First Lady Jill Biden, left, greets Olena Zelenska, spouse of Ukrainian’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, outside School 6, a public school that has taken in displaced students in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, Sunday, May 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

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.