Shoot in the time of war: Ukraine President and First Lady's war-themed Vogue photoshoot draws criticism

Romancing seems to have become the new passion of photo journalists across the globe. After a number of heartbreaking pictures appeared from the Ukrainian-Russian war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska have stirred up the internet by shooting for a few 'war-themed' pictures for leading fashion magazine Vogue.

Zelenskyy and his wife's digital cover for the magazine and some other pictures have invited netizens' wrath after they found them insensitive for using war as a backdrop to tell the story of their marriage and struggles of surviving in a war situation.

The interview with Vogue reads - Being first lady is not a role Olena Zelenska ever wanted to play. “I like being backstage—it suited me,” she said to Vogue in a wide-ranging interview conducted in-person in Kyiv. “Moving into the limelight was quite difficult for me.” She and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in high school, started dating at university, and had a full life in the entertainment world before Zelenskyy won the presidency in 2019. Protective of their family life, she hadn’t wanted him to run. But like so many of her fellow Ukrainians in this war, Zelenska has risen to the occasion with grace and grit. “I’m trying to do my best,” she said.

For Vogue’s special digital cover story, Zelenska and her husband Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about life in wartime, their marriage and shared history, and the dreams for Ukraine’s future.

While a storm irrupted on Twitter over the same, Lauren Boebert, a Republican Congresswoman from Colorado, who opposed military aid for Ukraine wrote, “While we send Ukraine $60 billion in aid Zelensky is doing photoshoots for Vogue Magazine,“ she tweeted on 27 July. “These people think we are nothing but a bunch of suckers.”

Meanwhile, many Ukrainians have defended the photoshoot saying it is going to help their cause. “People judging (Zelenska's) Vogue photos as 'frivolous' would probably be outraged that Ukrainians still go out, dress up, buy presents to kids, celebrate birthdays. If (Ukrainian) defenders on the frontline say life should continue, why some foreigners feel entitled to deny us this right?,” tweeted popular journalist Olga Tokariuk.