KYIV, Ukraine\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Wait. President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine\u2019s war chief, holding a puppy?<\/p>\n
Yes, and it\u2019s no accident. In a collision of dog lovers, sports and ongoing war with Russia, the Ukrainian president on Tuesday was captured on video as never before \u2014 cuddling and cooing over a floppy, three-month-old American pit bull terrier, handed to him by U.S. former boxer Terence Crawford. <\/p>\n
The cute and fluffy scene in Zelensky\u2019s office in Kyiv was the latest volley in a deadly serious battle of visuals that runs in parallel to Ukraine\u2019s fight against Russia\u2019s brutal four-year invasion.<\/p>\n
Crawford, a longtime supporter of Ukraine and a devotee of the American pit bull terrier, came forward and handed a reddish-yellow puppy to Zelensky. <\/p>\n
And for a few minutes in Kyiv, cultures, death and geopolitics yielded to the power of sweetness and puppy love, as well as the symbolism of resilience and protection. <\/p>\n
A happy, floppy puppy belies a more serious backdrop<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a truism of the political world: If you want a friend, get a dog. Zelensky, weighed down by war and scandal, seemed to have found both in the light-eyed puppy that melted into his chest.<\/p>\n
The president smiled and cooed something into the dog\u2019s fur. He cradled her as he was told the pup\u2019s name is Freya \u2014 after Zelensky\u2019s pet project, Freyja, Ukraine\u2019s proposed missile defense system with European allies. <\/p>\n
He was further informed that Freya\u2019s grandfather survived the devastating Russian siege of Bucha in 2022. Zelensky cuddled the pup close as they posed for photos. She appeared to relax, letting two white-tipped paws dangle from Zelensky\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president said he would accept\u201d Freya, said Vadym Danylchenko, adviser to the minister of youth and sports in Ukraine, who helped organize the visit.<\/p>\n
Politically and culturally, it might have been problematic to refuse. Animals have become a symbol of the nation\u2019s forbearance during the four-year war. One mural in a Kyiv park immortalizes a Jack Russell terrier named Patrone who is renowned for assisting mine-clearing teams in the northern Chernihiv district and became a mascot for Ukraine\u2019s emergency services. Zelensky awarded him a state medal. UNICEF recognized the pup as the first \u201cGoodwill AmbassaDOG.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another mural depicts volunteer fighter Oleksii Movchan, holding a grey-and-white cat. He and three fellow soldiers rescued 11 civilians and the cat in the eastern Donetsk region shortly before being killed by Russian shelling in 2022. <\/p>\n
Stories abound of others going to great lengths to rescue Ukraine\u2019s animals during the Russian invasion, including one Ukrainian woman who worked to save hundreds from the war by shipping some to safer Western Ukraine and others overseas. <\/p>\n
The politics of nations hovers<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the fraught matter of American support for Ukraine. Zelensky was famously dressed down by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance last year in the Oval Office, though the leaders have appeared to have mended fences since then. But in Zelensky\u2019s office on Tuesday, an American sports hero was handing him an American dog breed. Zelensky embraced the love.<\/p>\n
Freya is the granddaughter of Athos \u2014 a dog who survived the Russian brutality in Bucha and was found on the street where Ukrainian forces destroyed a large Russian convoy, Danylchenko told the Associated Press in an interview. <\/p>\n
Through rescuers, Athos made his way to Crawford\u2019s friend Francisco Lopez, a professional breeder and longtime Ukraine supporter in America. Athos\u2019 daughter had been left behind in Ukraine. Lopez flew an unrelated male dog to Ukraine to mate with Athos\u2019 daughter. She gave birth to Freya. <\/p>\n
The puppy\u2019s name has a particular resonance in Ukraine. European nations are developing the antiballistic missile defense system with Ukraine amid shortages, particularly of American-made Patriot interceptors. Patriot interceptors are in shorter supply as the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran continues to rage, and Trump last month appeared to back away from a recent commitment to give Ukraine a license to produce them. <\/p>\n
\u201cTerence really wanted to give the president this particular female puppy,\u201d said Danylchenko, who said he wasn\u2019t initially supportive of giving the president a gift laden with such responsibility. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey named her Freya. Obviously, from the perspective of our country\u2019s future, this was important,\u201d he added. \u201cThis little girl is a symbol of the fact that her grandfather survived and was a direct witness to the events in Bucha. So it was very symbolic for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kellman and Yurchuk write for the Associated Press. Kellman reported from London. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KYIV, Ukraine\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Wait. President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine\u2019s war chief, holding a puppy? Yes, and it\u2019s no accident. In a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11897,5622,11901,11899,11817,158,7112,1106,11898,25,26,11816,11900,314,170],"class_list":["post-34083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-athos","tag-bucha","tag-crawford","tag-dog-lover","tag-freya","tag-kyiv","tag-office","tag-president","tag-puppy","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-vadym-danylchenko","tag-visual","tag-war","tag-zelensky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}