Viktor Derevyanko woke up in searing pain, his body burning. Blood poured from his hand as he tried to wipe his face. A piece of metal had gone through his arm and stomach and into the muscle around his heart. “I couldn’t get my bearings,” said Derebianko, the unit’s deputy chief. “It wasn’t until the third explosion that I managed to fall out of bed and tried to find at least one place to hide, because the explosions didn’t stop.” Story continues below ad Story continues below ad It was around 4:15 am. on February 24. Hours earlier, Derevianko and the other Ukrainian guards joked disparagingly about President Biden, again warning of a Russian invasion. Now he was her first target. Within minutes, the Russian missiles began firing from their launchers. They hammered Ukrainian air defenses, radar batteries, ammunition depots, airfields and bases, filling the dawn with the sounds of war. At about the same time, Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky was awakened by the ringing of his cell phone. For the past few days, he had experienced a rush of relief every time he opened his eyes to the morning light, realizing that the arrival of a new day meant that Russia had not invaded. This time, it was still dark. The head of Ukraine’s border guard was on the line and told him his units were fighting Russians in three of the country’s northeastern regions. This was not the limited invasion, isolated to the east of the country, that many top Ukrainian officials had expected. Monastyrsky hung up the phone and called President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky. (Emily Sabens/The Washington Post, Serhiy Morgunov for The Washington Post, iStock) “It has begun,” Monastirsky told the Ukrainian leader. “What exactly?” Zelensky asked. “Judging by the fact that there are attacks in different places at the same time, this is it,” he said, telling Zelensky that it looked like a wide-scale invasion hitting Kyiv. “In the first few minutes, they dealt terrible blows to our air defenses, terrible blows to our troops in general. … There were 20-meter craters, which no one has seen in his life,” Monastyrsky later recalled. The question everyone faced at the time, Monastyrsky said, was: “How far can the enemy go with this massive punch?” [Database of 235 videos exposes the horrors of war in Ukraine] If the Russians could seize the seat of power in Ukraine, or at least cause the government to flee in panic, the country’s defenses would quickly crumble. Moscow could install a puppet government. This was the Kremlin’s plan. Instead, what happened in and around Kyiv over the next 36 days would represent the biggest foreign blunder in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 22-year rule. His attack on the city immediately reshuffled Europe’s security architecture vis-à-vis Moscow and isolated his nation to a degree not seen since the Cold War. To the surprise of the world, the assault on the Ukrainian capital would result in a humiliating retreat, exposing deep systemic problems in a Russian military that had spent billions to rebuild. Despite the resulting flaws in Russia’s war planning, the outcome of the battle for Kyiv was not predetermined. This account of how Ukrainian forces defended and saved their capital is based on interviews with more than 100 people — from Zelensky and his advisers, to Ukrainian military commanders, volunteer militiamen, as well as senior US civilian and military officials and of Europe. A reconstruction of events shows that, even as Ukraine’s political leadership had downplayed the possibility of a full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian military had taken critical steps to withstand Russia’s initial attack. Commanders had moved personnel and equipment from the bases, despite their own misgivings about what was about to happen. Story continues below ad Story continues below ad Ukrainian forces lacked sufficient weapons, ammunition and communication equipment. But what they did possess was a deep will to fight—a will that would extend beyond Ukrainian soldiers to ordinary citizens and, most importantly, to the president himself. The defenders would also benefit from the terrain around the capital—dense forests, narrow roads, winding rivers—that favored their guerrilla tactics, as well as frost-free weather that thawed the ground and bogged down Russian vehicles. In particular, the Irpin River, a waterway that marked the line of defense on the western edge of Kyiv, would help protect the capital when Ukrainian forces released dammed water to flood its banks. Those fighting to save Kyiv also benefited greatly from key miscalculations by the Kremlin, which set in motion a plan to invade Kyiv based on poor assumptions about the capability of the Ukrainian military, the resilience of the Zelensky government, and the determination of the Ukrainian people to resist. In the end, the Russians would not occupy any ground within the city limits of Kiev, instead being stuck for weeks on the outskirts of the capital before retreating. The Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment. As the war began, Putin was about 475 miles away in Moscow. Sitting at a wooden desk in a black suit and maroon tie, he appeared on television to announce what he called a “special operation” to “demilitarize and de-nazize” Ukraine. Moscow had “no other opportunity to protect Russia than the one we will be forced to use today,” Putin said. In a televised address on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announces the Kremlin’s “special operation” in Ukraine. (Emily Sabens/The Washington Post; Xinhua News Agency/Getty; iStock) As the speech ended, loud explosions echoed throughout Kyiv. Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska said she turned over in bed to find an empty space where her husband had been sleeping. She got up and walked over to find him wearing a charcoal gray suit and white shirt. No tie. “What happens?” asked. “It has begun,” answered Zelensky. He looked at the faces of his children, ages 17 and 9, before leaving for his office. Zelensky said he couldn’t help thinking that Russian missiles were flying “over my children, over all our children” — that an unimaginable number of Ukrainians were going to die. The choice Moscow had made, after months of pretend diplomacy, playing the victim and lying on the international stage, was below all dignity, Zelensky thought. He felt sure that the Ukrainians shared his rage, that they would fight. Zelensky called a meeting of his top advisers. They decided that part of the cabinet – including those responsible for the police and defense – would remain in Kyiv, while others would relocate to western Ukraine. Officials watched with wide eyes as border surveillance cameras recorded hundreds of Russian tanks and other armored vehicles pouring into Ukraine in columns reminiscent of a World War II advance. From Belarus to the north. From Russia to the east. From the Crimea to the south. “The whole map was red and demanded attention,” Monastyrsky said. The Russians pressed into the danger zone around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant, where Ukrainian border guard sector chief Vitaliy Yavorskiy would later find evidence that they had dug trenches in radioactive soil and eaten contaminated deer they shot in the nearby forest. Story continues below ad Story continues below ad The goal of the invaders was to penetrate and occupy Kyiv, the Centuries-old metropolis with golden domes above the Dnieper River. Declared the “Mother of Russian Cities” by Oleg of Novgorod when he conquered it in the Middle Ages, the city shares a past with Russia that Putin has exploited to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty. Putin had characterized Russians and Ukrainians as a people divided by Soviet artifice and Western intervention, making a case for going to war to reset history. As Kyiv dawned, Zelensky hit the phones, talking to President Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders to ask for help. Within hours, he was sitting at a desk and recording a video of himself to the Ukrainian people – millions of whom had thought an attack on Kyiv impossible and were now waking up to explosions and piling into their cars in shock. “Today I ask each of you to remain calm. If possible, please stay home,” Zelensky said. “We are working. The army is working. The entire security and defense sector of Ukraine is working.” He promised to appear later in the day and remain in regular contact, assuring Ukrainians they would remain strong. “We are ready for anything. We will defeat anyone.” , he said. “Glory to Ukraine!” Inside the government complex in central Kiev, Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, looked at his ringing cellphone. It was the Kremlin. The former entertainment lawyer, a regular at Zelensky’s side, was reluctant to take it at first, he said. The phone rang once and then again. Answer it. He heard the raspy voice of Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff, who was born in Ukraine but had long since entered Putin’s inner circle. Kozak said it was time for the Ukrainians to surrender. Yermak swore at Kozak and hung up. Story continues below ad Story continues below ad
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Bookish and pensive, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky is the kind of seasoned military man who plans for all eventualities — even the scenarios he considers highly improbable. The idea that Kyiv – where the war of cities would disturb even the most sophisticated…
