Weapons instead of traditional sweets. On the occasion of Saint Nicholas, celebrated in Ukraine on December 19, First Lady Olena Zelenska shared children’s drawings and letters on Instagram, posted on social networks by “volunteers and mothers”.
But this year, marked by almost a year of a war launched by Russia on February 24, Ukrainian children do not ask for sweets or gifts from Saint Nicholas, who rewards good behavior and punishes those who have not been prudent.
“Saint Nicholas, bring weapons, clothes, food to heat them,” wrote little Evelina in a message addressed to the Ukrainian soldiers, and shared by the wife of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Little Anton, for his part, writes that “his father wanted [lui] give me a new phone, but it’s dead.”
“Dear Saint Nicholas, help the Ukrainian forces advance towards the city of Rubizhne,” wrote another, who lives in the Russian-annexed Luhansk region.
Letters that “cannot be read without tears”
For the First Lady, “candy, toys and gadgets” “is everything that children usually want in the world.” But the little Ukrainians, whose cities are regularly bombed, “demand that their father or her brother come home.”
“All children without exception ask for victory in Saint Nicholas”, affirms the First Lady, for whom these messages “cannot be read without tears”.
“No child needs to know what war is (…) On Saint Nicholas Day, what I most want is that the peace that children ask for returns to our homes as soon as possible, and with it the carefree wishes of the children. children, the pleasant bustle of adults and ordinary life that should be normal for children, and not a miracle”, adds Olena Zelenska.
Source: BFM TV
