Biden administration reportedly considered seating Olena Zelenska near Yulia Navalnya, widow of anti-Russian activist Alexei Navalny, who is deeply unpopular in Ukraine
Ukraine on the brink
Paul Gigot interviews Gen. Jack Keane.
Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska has declined an invitation to attend President Biden's State of the Union address, according to reports.
Zelenska was intended to be seated next to U.S. first lady Jill Biden at the event on Thursday, according to The Washington Post.
The two first ladies would also have been arranged next to activist Yulia Navalnya, the widow of deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
No reason has been given for Zelenska declining to appear at the address, but the decision to seat her near Navalnya struck many intelligence experts as bizarre.
Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, arrives to address members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Michael Reynolds/Pool Photo via AP)
The late Alexei Navalny is not popular among the citizens of Ukraine due to past statements supporting Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
"The fact that Team Biden wanted to host Yuliya Navalnaya and Alyona Zelenskaya in the same room is screaming evidence that they have no clue about the cultural, ethnic, and political dynamics between the Russians and Ukrainians, Moscow and Kiev, etc," Russian-born U.S. military intelligence analyst Rebekah Koffler told Fox News Digital.
Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks during the Munich Security Conference in Munich. (Kai Pfaffenbach/Pool Photo /AP)
"Navalnaya and Zelenskaya are on the opposite sides – they are both nationalists, but one is a Russian nationalist and the other is Ukrainian. They cannot mix," Koffler continued. "Navalnaya, who has vowed to continue her husband’s work, is like her husband — a nationalist, pro-Russia, pro-Slavic. Navalny, like many Russian dissidents, was a nationalist who espoused xenophobic, anti-immigration, Russia for Russians only, Imperialist philosophy."
While Navalnaya later softened on the Russia-Ukraine issue and began showing more support for the smaller nation's fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion, his reputation never improved.
The decision to seat the Ukrainian first lady next to the deceased Russian activist's wife was either an ill-fated attempt to encourage an alliance or a major oversight of the Biden administration.
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President Biden delivers his 2023 State of the Union address during a joint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
"You have to be a thinking person, intellectually curious, and competent, to dig into all of these details," Koffler told Fox News Digital. "And Biden as well as people surrounding him are simply looking at what’s on the surface. They have no in-depth understanding of the regional dynamics in Eurasia and how the world works."
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington for comment.
Timothy Nerozzi is a writer for Fox News Digital. You can follow him on Twitter @timothynerozzi and can email him at
