President refused to abandon compound as hit squads closed in
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY refused to be evacuated from his compound in Kyiv even as Russian assassination squads parachuted into the capital and tried to storm the building to kill him, it has emerged.
At the start of the invasion on Feb 24, those inside defended themselves with automatic weapons and erected defences as the Russians twice tried to storm them at night.
A back gate was blocked with only plywood boards and police barricades.
According to an account of the crisis given by Oleksiy Arestovych, a presidential adviser, to TIME, Mr Zelensky was urged to leave and go to a secure facility away from Kyiv.
Both British and US forces offered to transport Mr Zelensky and allow him to set up a government in exile, probably in Poland, but he never seriously thought about it.
Advisers warned him that the compound was at risk from sniper fire and grenades hurled from nearby buildings.
Mr Zelensky and a dozen of his aides were given bulletproof vests and assault rifles, but some did not know how to use them.
Mr Arestovych said: “It was an absolute madhouse. Automatics for everyone. The place was wide open. We
didn’t even have concrete blocks to close the street.”
He said the president’s wife and children were also still there as the Russians threat escalated.
Mr Zelensky would not leave, and on the second night, he went outside to record a video to show the Ukrainian people he had not fled.
The president himself told TIME: “You understand that they’re watching. You’re a symbol. You need to act the way the head of state must act.”
In the early days of the invasion, he would get up before dawn and have his first meeting with his top general at 5am. As the war progressed, he and aides would watch drone strikes on computer screens and cheer as Russian tanks were destroyed.
In early March, he made a secret visit to the front line, according to the account, and he only took a small security team.
Mr Arestovych said bodyguards had been “losing their minds” at the risk involved, and many of Mr Zelensky’s team only found out months later that he had done it.
On another trip to the front line a few days later, he ate soup within the range of Russian snipers and artillery.
Another adviser told the magazine that Mr Zelensky was his own “main” speechwriter and that he worked in a “situation room” with sandbags blocking the windows and lights turned off.
Ukrainian soldiers also use everchanging nonsense passwords to prevent infiltrators.
Old passwords reportedly included “coffee cup suitor”.
Mr Zelensky admitted that the conditions had affected him.
He told TIME: “I’ve aged from all this wisdom that I never wanted. It’s the wisdom tied to the number of people who have died and the torture the Russian soldiers perpetrated.
“To be honest, I never had the goal of attaining knowledge like that.”