The first ladies have exchanged several times since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Brigitte Macron received her Ukrainian counterpart Olena Zelenska on Monday at the Elysée, discussing aid for the reconstruction of hospitals in the country at war and the reception of children in France.
Olena Zelenska spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife ahead of a dual conference in Paris on emergency aid to Ukraine in the dead of winter and corporate engagement French in the reconstruction of the country. “They gave an update on Operation Cigogne which has allowed the reception of Ukrainian children suffering from cancer in France and on the 20,000 children attending school in France” since the start of the Russian intervention on February 24, we said in the entourage of Brigitte Macron.
They “know each other well”
They will go on Tuesday to a school in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris which welcomes children from families who have fled the war, according to this source. “They also discussed the foundation that Ms. Zelenska launched” to collect humanitarian aid and allow the reconstruction of hospitals in eastern Ukraine, it was specified.
“The two first ladies know each other well,” said an adviser to Brigitte Macron, recalling that President Volodymyr Zelensky had made one of his very first trips abroad to France in June 2019 after his election and that the two women have seen each other regularly since. They called each other at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, exchanged in writing or by videoconference since February 24 and met again in New York in September, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.