The Bunker President Zelensky Lives
Picture this, the appointment is with a wartime president Zelensky. It is not business as usual. The appointment is at 11.00 pm. The phone lights up at 10.39 pm with the message: “This is your location pin to meet the president … please be punctual”.
It is like something out of a Hollywood thriller, and ironically, we are on our way to meet a man who’d spent most of his working life as an actor but is now the most guarded commander-in-chief on the planet. And that goes some way to explaining the arduous security checks and precautions we have to navigate to gain access to his secret compound in central Kyiv.
Zelensky’s bunker’s roadblocks
After negotiating roadblocks manned by rifle-wielding special forces, we are led on foot down a concealed alleyway, which takes us to a dark courtyard. There, more soldiers man a steel gate, with road spikes in front of it. They check our passports and direct us to a compound inside.
There, we have to put all of our equipment through x-ray machines, go through more passport checks and are then handed to the dog squad who sniff our belongings for explosives.
Just like good guests, we bought some gifts: a bottle of Penfolds wine for the president and a packet of Tim Tams. But what we think is a treat, the Ukrainian guards see as a threat. “We need to send these away for testing before giving them to the president, we can’t risk radiation poisoning,” a curt soldier tells me through our translator.
The meeting in the bunker: one on one with Zelensky
The building where we are to meet isn’t the palace the president would normally call home when not at war, but it still has a grandiose feel. We are led to the room where only a couple of days earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had met Ukraine’s leader for historic face-to-face talks.
There are nine chandeliers, and four giant Ukrainian flags, and the main wall features a giant artwork of a woman with her arms raised above her head – we are told her name is Oranta, the icon who defends Kyiv. Legend has it that as long as Oranta continues extending her arms above Kyiv, the city will stand indestructible.
This has been Zelensky’s lonely life as the commander-in-chief for a year. It’s been that way since February 24, when the 44-year-old made the decisive decision not to escape Ukraine, instead staying in Kyiv with his people to defend their territory from the Russian invasion.
Walking through the compound that the president has called home for nine weeks, there are reminders everywhere that this is no longer a bourgeois building; it’s a wartime bunker.
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Pitch dark compound
The hallways are pitch black – all the lights turned off and windows covered with sandbags – so the complex can’t be seen by any potential Russian bombers.
Some doorways are blocked by filing cabinets piled one on top of the other, and chairs reinforcing them, it’s a simple almost farcical attempt at defense should the building be stormed, but speaks to how paranoid they are here about Putin’s intent to kill Ukraine’s commander in chief.
But the days of vaudeville are long gone for Volodymyr Zelensky – now the leading man for Ukraine in its hour of need. Russian President Vladimir Putin is clearly rattled by his adversary … there have already been 10 foiled assassination attempts on Zelensky.
Immediately after the Russians invaded Ukraine a year ago, Zelensky was sneaked out that night without telling his wife to the underground bunker that has now become his home for the past year.
What does this war room underground bunker entail?
In a documentary project titled ‘Year’, footage from the president’s base included a tour of Zelensky’s bedroom, hidden wardrobe, and office space.
A picture of his family and Churchill for moral support
On his desk lie models of planes and a photograph of him and his wife Olena, along with their two children, as well as a bust of wartime leader Winston Churchill.
His office is also bedecked in models of tanks and a Ukrainian flag.
In the documentary, Zelensky notes that his family joined him hours later after security forces decided it was too dangerous for them to remain separate from Zelensky.
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A wardrobe of military fatigues
As well as ample office space, Zelensky’s war rooms are complete with a wardrobe filled almost exclusively with khaki and war-time clothing.
Zelensky has not been seen in a suit since the beginning of the invasion but does have the one he last wore as war broke out tucked safely away in the wardrobe. To him, this suit is symbolic.
It is otherwise filled with clothes in various shades of green and black, with military-style boots at the bottom.
Zelensky One bedroom Bunker
The footage shows Zelensky’s small bedroom, complete with a single bed and sink.
It is now one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine took place and all we can say there’s a flicker of light that is dimming away from the tail end of war, especially with the two sides of the west that supports Ukraine and Russia holding onto their positions.
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