Zelenska attends a ceremony in Kyiv in Nov. 2023. (Kirill Chubotin / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
First Lady Olena Zelenska told The Economist that she does not want President Volodymyr Zelensky to lead another term and that he needs to find something new in life.
"I don't want him to be president for another term or two terms,” she told journalists.
When asked about how she envisions her future, she said "our family will reunite. We will live together all the time. After that we’ll take a vacation.”
There has been heated debate over whether Ukraine needs to hold a national election in March next year as originally scheduled.
Zelensky said in November that it was "not the right time" for elections.
Lance Luo (Li P. Luo) is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. Previously, he worked at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Hromadske Television in Kyiv. He also spent three years in finance and strategy consulting. Mr. Luo graduated from the University of Southern California and serves as an arbitrator at FINRA.
A farewell ceremony was held in Kyiv on Nov. 7 for for Kostiantyn Huzenko, a photographer-turned-soldier, killed in a Russian strike on Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on Nov. 1.
In a closed-door briefing with journalists, Rustem Umerov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and Oleksandr Kamyshin, an advisor on Strategic Industries to the President's Office, said that the current production capacity (for this year) of the Ukrainain defense industry is around $35 billion per year.
The European Commission adopted stricter rules on issuing visas to Russian citizens, who will be largely banned from receiving multi-entry visas, the EU announced on Nov. 7.
Denys Shmyhal's announcement comes as Ukraine aims to strike deeper into Russian territory in an attempt to disrupt its logistics and grind down its war machine from a distance.
Gunvor, which is registered in Cyprus and headquartered in Switzerland, was founded in 1997 by Gennady Timchenko, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Swedish billionaire Torbjörn Törnqvist.
The Kremlin has officially incorporated the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions into Russia’s Southern Military District, the Center for Countering Disinformation reported on Nov. 6.
Ukraine has submitted a draft education law to Hungary that partly addresses Budapest’s demands related to language policy in schools, Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka said on Nov. 7.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte urged member states and their defense industries to "outgun, outproduce, and outsmart those that seek to harm or diminish us."
The Kyiv Independent news desk
