Times: Zelensky was minutes away from being killed or captured by the Russians

The British newspaper "

Times" reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his family were only a few minutes away from being killed or captured by Russian commandos that entered the capital Kiev immediately after the Russian "invasion" began on February 24.

According to new interviews with Zelensky and his staff, the Ukrainian president told the American journalist Simon Schuster that before sunrise that day, he and his wife, Olena Zelenska, went to tell their 17-year-old daughter Alexandra and their 9-year-old son Kirill that the bombing had taken place. He began, and to prepare them to flee their home, adding that they woke them up under the sound of explosions.

parachute landing

He was soon told by the Ukrainian military that Russian commandos had parachuted into Kyiv to kill or capture him and his family.

The Russian forces were minutes from Zelensky and his family, and the presidential offices were not the safest place so the army asked them to leave, but the president refused to leave.

With Ukrainian forces fighting the Russians in the streets, the Presidential Guard tried to seal off the Zelensky complex with whatever police barricades and planks they could find.

The newspaper says that other figures have taken shelter in the presidential compound with Zelensky, including Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk.

"It wasn't the fear on his face," Stefanchuk said of the president. "The question was: How could this be? We felt the collapse of the world order."

Battles around the government district

As night fell on the first day, gun battles broke out around the government district, Zelensky was still there with his wife and children, and guards turned off lights and distributed bullet-proof vests to the president and his staff.

Oleksiy Aristovich, a top aide to Zelensky, told Schuster that on the first day, Russian forces made two attempts to storm the compound.

On the second night of the war, a video message of Zelensky and his team was filmed in the pale green army shirts that would then become their wartime uniform. "We are all here to defend our independence, the independence of our country," the president said.

Zelensky rejected offers from the United States and Britain to send troops to drive him out of Kyiv, telling officials in Washington in one of his calls with them, "I need ammunition, not a flight."