Both Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, were invited to today’s State of the Union address but chose not to attend, the White House revealed on Wednesday.
According to The Washington Post, the White House had planned to seat Zelenska and Navalnaya close to First Lady Jill Biden, in an attempt to have both symbols to Vladimir Putin’s main internal and external threats present on Capitol Hill.
However, the Ukrainian entourage was reportedly uneasy about Navalny’s widow’s presence. Sources say Zelenska was uncomfortable with some of Navalny’s past nationalist statements, including claiming that Crimea – a Ukrainian region illegally annexed by Russian troops in 2014 – was indeed Russian territory.
“Due to scheduled events, including a visit of children from an orphanage to Kyiv, which was planned in advance, the first lady will unfortunately not be able to attend the event,” Tetiana Haiduchenko, Zelenska’s press secretary, told the New York Times.
Navalnaya also refused the invitation to Biden’s speech, claiming fatigue after her spouse mysteriously died on February 16 in an Arctic jail.
“Yulia was indeed invited and considered going, but I think everyone forgets the circumstances against which the events unfolded,” Navalnaya spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh told the Washington Post.
“Yulia’s husband died two weeks ago. She’s been traveling all this time. Today is the first day she’s been home at all. Like any human being, she needs time to recover, and so while she very much appreciates the invitation, she needs to recover at least a little now.”
In his speech, Biden is expected to urge the Congress once again to restore military aid to the war-torn country, which has been dealing with severe ammunition shortages on the battlefield in recent months.
In an effort to intensify pressure on House Republicans to authorize further help to Kyiv, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is inviting a young Ukrainian soldier who was injured by a landmine explosion to Biden’s speech.
25-year-old Andrii Chevozorov was hurt in the contested Donetsk area of eastern Ukraine in September. Since January, he has been receiving care at Staten Island University Hospital in New York, where he has been fitted with a prosthetic limb and is receiving rehabilitation treatments.
