Speculation about Melania Trump: A part-time first lady

Opinions differ when it comes to Melania Trump. On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky honored his US counterpart's wife with the Order of Princess Olga, First Class. In doing so, he shows Ukraine's gratitude for the ceasefire negotiated by Melania Trump and the partial evacuation of the front-line town of Oleschky, which was encircled by Russia.

The order is the highest award given only to women. The Zelensky decree states that Trump is receiving the award for her “significant personal contribution to humanitarian support for Ukraine, her active commitment to human rights and charitable activities to protect Ukrainian children.”

According to a report by the AP news agency, Melania Trump had been negotiating for weeks with negotiators from Russia and Ukraine in order to supply the people in Oleschky, who had not been supplied with water, food, medicine and fuel for months. And to enable everyone there who wants to leave to leave for Ukraine or Russia. Around 800 people managed to do this on Saturday.

Melania Trump is the first presidential wife to negotiate a ceasefire. Previously, she was the first first lady in the history of the United Nations to chair a meeting of the UN Security Council. This Thursday she wants to report details about the rescue operation in Oleschky. It remains unclear whether she will also say anything about her efforts to free the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been abducted to Russia.

This is the first time that the woman, who grew up in 1970 in the small Slovenian town of Sevnica, which was still part of Yugoslavia, appeared in public again. According to press reports, she did not spend election night of the midterms alongside her husband Donald Trump and his advisers in the White House.

According to an analysis by the TV channel NBC, Melania only made half as many public appearances in Trump's second term as in Donald Trump's first four years. Melania Trump, who once said “I know who I married” during marital crises reported by the US media, is becoming rare. "I heard you missed me. Here I am," said the 56-year-old on August 20 when she presented the initiative she developed to support foster children in the Rose Garden of the White House after 32 days of abstinence.

In October, she pushed through a women's health initiative with the presidential husband. She is currently making protecting children from artificial intelligence a core issue. Opinions differ about the model Melania Knauss, who moved to New York in 1995 and has been married to Trump since January 2005: The New York Times called her “the Slovenian Sphinx”. In the Los Angeles Times, she was described as a “political actor who knows no compromise.” And according to the New Yorker, she is “at least as imperial as her husband.”

She herself had told CNN at the time when her husband was in court over a hush-money affair surrounding his liaison with the porn actress Stormy Daniels: People would think, “Oh, poor Melania.” But she tells people: "Don't feel sorry for me. I can handle it."

Since Trump's first election, the media has speculated whether she is an enigma, a victim or an accomplice. In any case, according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff, the result was a corporate empire with a profit of 17 million dollars, of which more than 10 million dollars came from the film “Melania”, which was financed by Amazon. The most expensive documentary ever commissioned, at $40 million, made huge losses and was panned as "calculating, infuriating and horrifying."

Because of her withdrawal from the public eye, while her husband is being reported for possibly having too close a relationship with his assistant Natalie Harp or, most recently, again about rape allegations, Melania is referred to as the “part-time first lady”. According to CNN, she is the most unpopular first lady of all time. However, the respondents did not yet know that they had achieved a ceasefire and the rescue of 800 people.