Olena Selenska in Vienna: First Ladies discuss peace and security

Olena Selenska in Vienna: First Ladies discuss peace and security

Wien, Österreich - Olena Selenska, the first lady of Ukraine, visited the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj, Vienna together with her husband. While Selenskyj continued to go to Canada after the successful Vienna visit to the G7 summit, Olena Selenska stayed in the Austrian capital.

Selenska will take part in a “First Lady workshop” on Wednesday, in which she will discuss with other first ladies and gentlemen. This event took place in the Hofburg in Vienna, where Suzanne Innes-Stubb from Finland, Ales Musar from Slovenia and Lucrecia Peinando from Guatemala were present. Doris Schmiedauer, the wife of Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, acted together with Selenska as a co-host.

First summit outside of Ukraine

At the first Ladies and gentlemen summit, Doris Schmidauer, Olena Selenska and Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger opened the event this Wednesday. Zuzana Čaputová, the former President of Slovakia, was invited as a speaker. During the discussions, topics such as geopolitical developments, the role of women for peace and security, as well as public diplomacy and soft power were dealt with. This is the first summit that takes place outside the Ukrainian capital. It was launched on the initiative of Selenska in 2021 and has been taking place every year since then, last in September 2024.

Other participants in the summit were Armanda Begaj from Albania, Anna Hakobyan from Armenia, Sirje Karis from Estonia and Tamara Vučić from Serbia. The discussions illuminated the definition of the roles of the first ladies and gentlemen as well as the available resources and obstacles to which they encounter.

The role of first ladies

Olena Selenska has now set up in her role as First Lady. Originally she preferred to work behind the scenes as a comedy author. According to Heike Specht, the political commitment of the first women can often be found in the shadow of her husbands. Historical personalities such as Elly Heuss-Knapp, the wife of the first German President Theodor Heuss, show that many first ladies had an important influence on social and political issues despite restricted visibility.

Heuss-Knapp was not only an educated woman, but also actively in political circles and one of the initiators of the German Council of the European movement. Similarly, her successors such as Mildred Scheel, who founded the German Cancer Aid, and Hilda Heinemann, who were involved in organizations such as Amnesty International.

This day, first ladies like Olena Selenska show that they can play an essential role in diplomacy and social engagement. They use their platforms to address important topics and call for a stronger inclusion of women in peace and security issues.

The Vienna event not only reflects the will for cooperation between different nations, but also the constant challenges that exist in the political world, especially in terms of gender equality and the public life of women.

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