A labyrinth of underground tunnels in central Kiev, in a bunker that has been converted into a government headquarters - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video today showing him for the first time at the site where Ukraine's response to the Russian invasion, which began exactly four years ago on this day, was orchestrated.
„Here, in this small room in the bunker on „Bankova“ Street (the address of the Ukrainian presidency), I had my first conversations with leaders from all over the world at the beginning of the war,” Zelensky said in the 19-minute video.
“From here I spoke to Joe Biden and told him that I needed ammunition, not taxis,” he added. The remark became famous at the time. Zelensky made it in response to the then-US president’s offer to help him flee the country.
The bunker is a vast Soviet-era bomb shelter, with neon-lit tunnels, meeting rooms, and rooms for each branch of government – the presidency, government, and parliament.
It is located beneath the presidential complex, which includes several buildings surrounded by a wall and is nestled between residential buildings and other government offices in central Kiev. Since the beginning of the invasion, the entire government district has been off-limits and surrounded by several military checkpoints.
The Presidential Palace, a monumental building in the neoclassical style typical of the Soviet era and often called “Stalinist”, dates back to the 1930s, when Ukraine was part of the USSR. The building was once the headquarters of the Communist Party of Soviet Ukraine. Since the beginning of Zelensky's presidential term in 2019, he, like some of his predecessors, has criticized the oppressive atmosphere of the place and planned to move his administration to a more modern place that embodies transparency. But with the outbreak of war, the infrastructure inherited from the Soviet era, reminiscent of the Cold War, has proven extremely useful. Moreover, the district has been hit several times by Russian strikes in the past few years. And given that, as the Ukrainian president's team says, Zelensky has been the target of ten assassination attempts since 2022.
AFP journalists heard several shots fired near the presidency on the first day of the Russian invasion in 2022. Some sources told AFP that a car packed with explosives tried to enter the presidential administration that day.
Today, each room in the bunker contains a dozen chairs, a television and Ukrainian flags. Electrical cables line the walls, which are also lined with gas pipes, and electrical outlets are installed on the ceiling. The only colorful things are the blue and yellow signs - the colors of the Ukrainian flag - that mark the way through this labyrinth. And green glowing signs indicate where the emergency exits are.
Zelensky, who is about 1.70 meters tall, has to bend down in the video as he walks through some of the tunnels.
In the corridor to a thick metal door leading to the presidential administration, a large map of the country is hung, above which is a white dove and the phrase "God save Ukraine".
"Our team, the government, worked here. This is where coordination took place every day with the military. This is where the telephone conversations took place. Everything that the Ukrainian resistance needed happened here," Zelensky says. "The weapons had to be delivered. Medicines and food were to be sent to the cities blocked by the enemy," the Ukrainian leader added.
The video was released on the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The bloodiest conflict in Europe since the end of World War II, the large-scale Russian offensive has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of people. The war has also caused geopolitical turmoil, forcing many European countries to increase their military spending in case of a possible confrontation with Russia. Diplomatic talks between Kiev and Moscow, launched in 2025 under the auspices of the United States, have so far failed to stop the fighting.
Translation from French: Gabriela Golemanska, BTA