Jill Biden to Ukrainian mom: Russia war 'hard to understand'

U.S. first lady Jill Biden spent Mother’s Day in Slovakia, meeting with Ukrainian mothers who've been displaced by Russia’s war

KOSICE, Slovakia -- U.S. first lady Jill Biden spent Mother’s Day meeting and offering support to Ukrainian mothers in Slovakia who have been displaced by Russia’s war and assuring them that the “hearts of the American people” are behind them.

At a bus station in the city of Kosice that is now a 24-hour refugee processing center, Biden found herself in an extended conversation with a Ukrainian woman who said she struggles to explain the war to her three children because she cannot understand it herself.

“I cannot explain because I don’t know myself and I’m a teacher,” Viktoriia Kutocha, who had her arms around her 7-year-old daughter, Yulia, told Biden.

At one point, Kutocha asked, “Why?” seeming to seek an explanation for Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24.