The war in Ukraine extends into the 6th month, with no end in sight in the near future. Russia is currently focusing on advances in eastern Ukraine, where the Donbass region is located.
During the conflict, several characters gained prominence, such as First Lady Olena Zelenska, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and, more recently, a “guru” of President Vladimir Putin, whose daughter was murdered in an explosion.
next, the CNN lists six of these people who rose to prominence during the conflict.
Olena Zelenska
First lady Olena Zelenska, 44, emerged as a strong supporter of her husband’s government, Volodymyr Zelensky, and an online supporter of Ukrainian troops.
Before the conflict, in 2019, when Zelensky was elected, she focused her agenda on social and humanitarian causes.
Zelenska was born in Kryvyi Rih, in southeastern Ukraine, on February 6, 1978, and met her husband at university, having studied at the Institute of Economics in her hometown.
“These were the most horrible months of my life and the lives of all Ukrainians,” Zelenska told Vogue in an interview in Kiev.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Olena spoke about fears that she and her family could become targets of attack. “I can’t think about it too seriously, otherwise I’d be paranoid,” she told Vogue.
The wedding took place in 2003 and they had their daughter Oleksandra a year later. Their son, Kyrylo, was born in 2013.
She also moved out of academia, entering showbusiness and helping Zelensky create stand-up performances for Russian TV comedy show KVN, according to Ukrainian press agency UNIAN. She later became a screenwriter for the TV production company Kvartal 95 Studio, which she co-founded.
Recently, she was involved in a controversy for posing in the midst of war scenarios for Vogue magazine.
Alexander Dugin (Putin’s guru)
Alexander Dugin lost his daughter Darya during an explosion in the car she was in on Saturday (20). He is considered one of the most influential Russian nationalists in the country.
Coming from a family of Russian military officers, his journey has been remarkable: from fringe ideologue to leader of a prominent current of thought in Russia that sees Moscow as the heart of a “Eurasian” empire that defies Western decadence. He is the spiritual founder of the term “the Russian world”.
Along the way, this strand embodied a deep aversion to Ukraine’s identity outside Russia.
Dugin, 60, helped revive the expression “Novorossiya” or New Russia – which included territories of parts of Ukraine – before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin even used the word when declaring Crimea part of Russia in March of that year.
Darya Dugina
Daughter of Putin’s “guru”, Darya Dugina, she also advocated the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. She was born in 1992, and graduated in philosophy at Lomonosov Moscow State University, where she later earned a PhD.
Its role in tensions with Ukraine is not new. In 2014, when Crimea was annexed by Russia, she claimed that the Eastern European country was living a dictatorship, influenced by a “globalist and pro-American agenda”.
In addition, it questioned the veracity of information about the conflict disseminated in the Western media and accused other countries of cultivating a culture of “Russophobia”.
Vadim Shishimarin
The 21-year-old Russian soldier was the first to be tried for war crimes in Ukraine after the outbreak of the conflict. He pleaded guilty to killing a 62-year-old unarmed civilian after taking orders.
The case was one of the landmarks of the conflict, as Ukraine accuses Russia of committing several war crimes, such as indiscriminately shooting at the country’s population and targeting non-military targets.
“Under the impression that the civilian intended to report them to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, one of the soldiers ordered Shishimarin to kill the civilian,” the prosecutor in the case said at the time.
The Russian government said it had no information about the trial and that not having a diplomatic mission in the country made it difficult to help the soldier.
Sergey Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has led Russian diplomacy for nearly 20 years. Lavrov publicly defends Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and recently met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – 5 months after the start of the war.
At the telephone meeting, Blinken said he had warned Lavrov for trying to annex more parts of Ukraine, stressing that the “world will not recognize the annexations” and that “it will impose significant additional costs on Russia if the country goes ahead with these plans.”
Lavrov, who has been a diplomat since the Soviet Union, is loyal to President Vladimir Putin and has gained power and money in his political career. On the second day of the war he was targeted by the United States with economic sanctions.
He played down the threat of sanctions against the country.
“Well, we’re used to it. We know that sanctions will be imposed anyway, in any case. Rightly or wrongly,” he added.
Vitali Klitschko
Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, has traveled the world representing his country as a boxer. With Kiev in the spotlight from the start of the war, the mayor did not stay behind the scenes regarding protection measures during the war.
Former world heavyweight boxing champion Klitschko claimed that the Ukrainians “stand in front of one of the strongest armies in the world”.
Vitali Klitschko even wrote a letter to Pope Francis asking the pontiff to visit the city. Klitschko wrote to Francis on March 8, saying the Pope’s presence in Kiev is the “key to saving lives and paving the way for peace in the city, the country and beyond.”
He also ordered the removal of a Soviet-era sculpture in the center of Kiev that commemorates the “friendship” between Russians and Ukrainians.
In an interview with CNN Klitschko accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to remake the Soviet Union and make Ukraine “part of the Russian empire”.
The mayor said Ukrainians would fight for “every square” and “every street” in Kiev if Russian forces advance on the city.
Source: CNN Brasil
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