“Putin thought he would take Kiev in 3 days: the parade was ready”, Zelensky and the background on the war

Before the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Russian forces conducted military exercises in Belarus. Yet, according to the Ukrainian president, many believed that Vladimir Putin was only trying to intimidate Kiev, without preparing a real offensive. Some European leaders had also contacted the Russian president, receiving assurances that there would not be an invasion.

Zelensky recalls a detail which, in his opinion, captures the atmosphere of those days: the parade uniforms that were found in Russian military vehicles hit by Ukrainian forces. A detail that gives an idea of ​​Russian expectations on the outcome of the attack and the speed with which the Kremlin imagined defeating the Ukrainian resistance. “When our guys hit their tanks and other vehicles, we found the parade uniforms. That’s true. They found them in several military vehicles. They were literally going to a parade“.

The Ukrainian president adds that the Russian plan envisaged conquering the capital very quickly and then celebrating the victory in the center of the city. “They wanted to conquer Kiev in three days and symbolically stage another show of pseudo-victory su Khreshchatyk e sulla piazza dell’Indipendenza, Maidan Nezalezhnosti”.

A project which, in Zelensky’s reading, reflected a fundamental mistake made by Vladimir Putin: having underestimated the Ukrainian national identity and the population’s will to resist the invasion.

The president also disputes the explanation according to which the Russian offensive failed due to an error in the route of the long military column heading towards Kiev. “They came. They occupied some towns along the road to Kiev, fought others and bypassed them.”

The problem, Zelensky continues, was not just reaching the capital, but being able to conquer it and control the territory crossed at the same time. “Each occupied city in fact required men to keep it under control, taking forces away from the advance. I think 300-400 thousand men were needed to take Kiev. They needed twice as many people.”

According to the Ukrainian president, the experience of Crimea in 2014 also contributed to creating a distorted perception of Russian capabilities in the Kremlin: “When Russia saw how easily Crimea had been conquered, it thought it could conquer Kiev just as easily.”

In the interview Zelensky also returns to phone call received from Joe Biden in the first days of the invasion. The American president offered him assistance in leaving the country with his family as the Russian advance continued. Zelensky’s response became one of the symbolic phrases of those days: “I need ammo, not a ride“.

The president says he has fully understood the extent of the tragedy only after about twenty days. At first, he says, he had no time to process what was happening: decisions had to be made, supplies secured, roads kept open and the military response organized. “I didn’t realize it until twenty days into the war. I realized that something had happened, something terrible. When the pace started to slow down a little, you started to understand: my God, this is a war. And it is definitely a terrible war. But in the beginning I was just working.”