First Lady Of Ukraine Calls For Technological Innovations To Be Used For Peace, Not Massacre

The first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska. (photo: twitter @ZelenskaUA)

JAKARTA - In a highly emotional appeal, Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, urged tech workers from around the world on Tuesday 1 November to create innovations to stop Russia and help save the people of her war-torn country.

"The dystopia we read about in science fiction novels is much closer than you think," Zelenska said at the packed venue at the opening of Europe's largest technology conference, Web Summit Lisbon. At that time he also showed a video after the drone attack in Kyiv. "Russia puts technology at the service of terror," he said.

Zelenska described technology as a "battlefield" in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He also said that technological equipment such as drones and missiles were used to "kill people", not to save them.

As some in the crowd held up Ukrainian flags, Zelenska, wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked those present to come up with ideas to "stop terror, save people and restore the shattered."

"You can help us stop the list of victims of terrorism from growing," he said. "I believe that such technology is the future, otherwise there will be no future to look forward to."

Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February in what Moscow called a "special military operation" to eliminate dangerous nationalists and protect Russian-speakers. Meanwhile, the Kyiv side called Moscow's military action an unreasonable imperialist land grab.

The conflict has killed thousands, displaced millions and reopened Cold War-era divisions.

"They (Russia) attacked our power plant, there are blackouts everywhere in the country now, every day, we have no electricity, no communication and no internet for hours on end," Zelenska said.

He said his country could no longer invest in high technology in places like schools because it had to buy generators instead.

More than 70,000 people are expected to attend the summit, which kicks off on Tuesday and will feature more than 900 speakers ranging from Microsoft Corp vice chairman Brad Smith to Changpeng Zhao, founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Web Summit boss Paddy Cosgrave told Reuters last week that 59 Ukrainian start-ups would attend the event. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's deputy prime minister who also runs the digital transformation ministry, will also speak.