An interview with Time magazine reveals that Russian troops made two attempts to storm the presidential compound while Zelenskyy and his family were there
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described how Russian forces almost captured or killed him in the first hours of the invasion.
Zelenskyy has been widely praised for his response to the invasion in the 65 days since the first Russian troops entered Ukraine. He has spoken before the US Congress, the World Bank and the Grammy Awards; Boris Johnson is one of the leaders who want to be seen at his company.
But according to Time magazine interviews, his time as leader of a country under attack by a far more powerful neighbor could have ended just hours after the invasion began.
Speaking to reporter Simon Shuster, who spent a fortnight at the presidential compound in Kyiv, Zelenskyy described how Russian troops almost found him and his family trying to take the capital’s government quarters on the first day of the conflict.
While many of his memories of those early hours remained “fragmented,” Zelenskyy said the dawn of February 24 was outstanding.
After the bombing began, he and his wife Olena Zelenska left to tell their daughter, 17, and son, 9, to prepare to flee their home. “We woke them up,” Zelensky told Time. “It was loud. There were explosions there.”
Ukrainian military told Zelenskyy that Russian assault teams parachuted into Kyiv to kill or capture him and his family. “Before that night, we had only seen these things in movies,” Andriy Yermak, his chief of staff, told the magazine.
On the first day of the war, as night fell, shooting broke out around the government district, Shuster wrote. “Guards on the premises turned off the lights and brought in bulletproof vests and assault rifles for Zelensky and about a dozen of his aides.”
One of the few officers who knew how to use the weapons was Oleksiy Arestovych, a veteran of the Ukrainian military intelligence service. “It was an absolute madhouse,” Arestovych told Time. “Automatically for everyone.”
According to Shuster, Russian troops made two attempts to enter the compound while Zelensky’s family was still inside.
The following night, after refusing offers of a safer environment including an evacuation by American and British forces that would enable him to establish a government in exile Zelenskyy went out into the courtyard to post a nowfamous video message on his phone record.
At that moment, Zelenskyy said he really realized his role in the war. “They understand they’re watching,” he told the magazine. “You are an icon. They must act as a head of state should act.”
SOURCE: The guard