Fears about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions had been mounting for months, and by the day before the war began, alarms were sounding loudly in Kyiv and Western capitals.” class=”wpds-c-hcZlgz wpds-c-hcZlgz-bkfjoi-font-georgia wpds-c-hcZlgz-jDmrXh-width-mdCenter wpds-c-hcZlgz-iPJLV-css mw-md font–article-body font-copy ma-auto pl-sm pr-sm pb-lg”>Fears about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions had been mounting for months, and by the day before the war began, alarms were sounding loudly in Kyiv and Western capitals.
To report this story
Most of the interviews were conducted in the last month, but some, including with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, occurred over the summer. President Biden talked about the first day of the war during his visit to Kyiv. Multiple Russian military officials and lawmakers declined to be interviewed or did not respond to requests for interviews.
Interviews were conducted by Isabelle Khurshudyan and David L. Stern in Kyiv, Karen DeYoung, Shane Harris and Michael Birnbaum in Washington, Greg Miller in London, Emily Rauhala in Brussels and Souad Mekhennet in Berlin.
Kaja Kallas, prime minister of Estonia
I said to my ministers, ‘Please keep your phones on, because we’re going to have a government meeting, because the war is going to start.’ And I was going to bed and hoping that I will not get this call, I will not get this message.
Boris Johnson, former British prime minister
The chatter had been building up on the intelligence for a long time, and it had reached a crescendo on the last couple of days before the invasion, and we could literally hear the Russian units moving into position. We could tell … It’s a mixture of kind of incredulity really but also fatalism. There was just something about Putin’s tone the last time I’d talked to him … He’d already made up his mind.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary general
That evening, we knew what was going to happen. The only uncertainty was the exact hour. I had a dinner with some of my staff in my residence. We discussed and went through the last preparations. And then, actually, I went to bed. But it was a short night.
Antony Blinken, secretary of state
As the invasion began, Putin appeared on Russian television to announce the beginning of what he called a “special military operation.” Johnson was awakened by a call from one of his advisers. The British prime minister responded with an obscenity directed at Putin: “That f—ing c—.”” class=”wpds-c-hcZlgz wpds-c-hcZlgz-bkfjoi-font-georgia wpds-c-hcZlgz-jDmrXh-width-mdCenter wpds-c-hcZlgz-iPJLV-css mw-md font–article-body font-copy ma-auto pl-sm pr-sm pb-lg”>As the invasion began, Putin appeared on Russian television to announce the beginning of what he called a “special military operation.” Johnson was awakened by a call from one of his advisers. The British prime minister responded with an obscenity directed at Putin: “That f—ing c—.”
Boris Johnson
I was disgusted by Putin. I was disgusted by what he was doing. I was nauseated by his language, by his lies, by his aggression, by his condescension toward Ukraine. I thought the whole thing was repellent, arrogant, chauvinistic, wrong.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
In the middle of the meeting, people started looking at their cellphones and pointing. I got a text message from the Ukrainian ambassador, who was on the other side of the room, and he told me the attack had started. I looked around the room, I saw everybody on their phones. I think [Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya] only knew when he was shown a phone message by one of his staff. The room was kind of stunned. I use the word ‘electrified’ sometimes, but that’s not right. The room was stunned.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
We were all in the office [at the Pentagon], everyone was on pins and needles … the system is all cued up on the balls of its feet … Then of course the invasion happened. We pick up Russian forces with pre-assault fires, airborne troops, artillery and missile attacks. We pick up airstrikes, all the combined arms Russian military forces that start assaulting across the border on multiple axes.
Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine
What I understood in that moment, when I was getting dressed, I thought about the rockets flying over my children, over all of our children. This means that there will be a huge number of deaths. It was clear.
David Arakhamia, member of the Ukrainian parliament and Zelensky adviser
To be honest, I hadn’t believed in the invasion scenario. … [Zelensky chief of staff Andriy] Yermak calls me sometime after 4 a.m. I was a little out of it at that hour. He just says, ‘It’s started. Get to the office.’ I didn’t even understand what had started … We had earlier come up with a response plan in the event of this. So that was activated and then we were moved down to this shelter. And that’s how I got stuck down there. I probably left that bunker for the first time a month later.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council
All the necessary decisions were promptly taken. Monastyrsky was the first to be at the president’s office. I was the second to come at 5:11 a.m. It was in a calm mode … I was only surprised by the president’s white dress shirt.
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser
Normally in a crisis like this, there are a lot of hours spent just trying to come to grips with a crisis … trying to decide what you’re going to do about it. In this case, it was all done in advance … We actually had developed a written checklist of elements we would work through … the first 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, 96 hours.
Mark A. Milley
Here’s what it wasn’t. It wasn’t chaotic. We’re the military, this is what we do when we’re in combat, in crises. We have procedures we follow … We had made decisions in the days and weeks leading up to the invasion … When they actually attacked, those plans went into action.
Antony Blinken
I was at home, it must have been something like 10:30 … and my deputy chief of staff, Tom Sullivan, called to say that Russia had launched its initial salvo of missiles … Most of us have everything we need at home to communicate. I have a secure room at home, phone, video links to everyone else … I talked to the national security adviser [Sullivan] at some point … My main conversation was with the secretary of defense and our joint conversation with the NATO secretary general.
Lloyd Austin, secretary of defense
Later on, I forget how long it was, Blinken, the chairman, the national security adviser and I are on the phone with the president, giving him a rundown of what’s transpired.
Boris Johnson
What Zelensky is really saying to me is that the situation is absolutely appalling. Tanks are swarming toward Kyiv from several directions. He’s talking about the way the Ukrainians are fighting. The bravery they’re showing … His message is, ‘Give me help.’ His message is, ‘Give me the kit now.’ He has a purpose. His purpose is not just to say, ‘Oh, my God, I’m being attacked.’ His purpose is to say, ‘Johnson, we need military help now. Help us organize it.’
President Biden
Boris Johnson
I’m struck by [Zelensky’s] complete, his sort of sublime indifference to the suggestion that he might want to move his cabinet or his government to Lviv [in western Ukraine]. I’m saying to him whatever you do, do not get taken out by the Russians. You are the resistance. Ukraine’s fight needs to coalesce around you. Is there anything we can do [to assist in his protection or relocation], and he said, ‘We’re fine, we just need weapons.’
Bruno Kahl, head of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND)
It wasn’t like it was a continuous bombardment, so to speak, but a few bombs had gone off during the night, a few bombs had fallen and otherwise it was relatively quiet … And it all seemed very, very calm, very collected. And I can still remember the weather. It was a cold, clear morning. I seem to remember that in the morning in Kyiv, I still had the impression that it smelled a bit like East Berlin just before reunification.
Jens Stoltenberg
We realized that this would change Europe, that this was one of the darkest days in Europe’s modern history and would cause a lot of suffering and death … Just the sheer size of the invasion made it obvious that this was going to cause a lot of suffering, death, damage. So it was anger, but also sadness — those are the two feelings that describe what I felt that morning.
William J. Burns, CIA director
You’re also seized with the human consequences of this, too. And the devastation that was being wrought by the Russians in Ukraine … I think all of us understood that this is likely to be a slog given Putin’s fixation on controlling Ukraine.
Mateusz Morawiecki, prime minister of Poland
I remember very well one moment when I spoke to one of my colleagues from the European Council, one of the other prime ministers with whom I spoke many times … He was very skeptical, not believing really, that Russia can make a full-scale invasion. And I asked him, ‘Do you believe me now?’ and he answered, ‘Yes, fully.’ … So this day was a turning point in the history of the world, in the history of Europe, for sure. So there were those hopes of, you know, awakening from the geopolitical slumber.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukrainian foreign minister
There was a woman from Kyiv who was traveling with her husband … And in the middle of the flight, she approached me … She sat down and said, ‘Listen, we have three children with a babysitter in [Kyiv]. Me and my husband, we’re coming back from a business trip in Turkey. Please give us some advice. Do we stay in Warsaw and arrange for our children and babysitter to get to Poland? Or do we go to Kyiv?’ And that was a moment when you bear a lot of responsibility on your shoulder as a minister. … When she left, it suddenly struck me how this is just a drop, what I experienced. It would be less than a drop of the pain, suffering and difficult decisions that millions of Ukrainians are going to go through in this war.
Bruno Kahl
You noticed the hardship people were in, especially … just before the border. That was the most emotionally intense part, the last 20 kilometers before the border, where you noticed that people were afraid, they all wanted to get out, and no one felt safe anymore. And people put up with great material disadvantages. They simply left their cars at the side of the road and walked with the bare necessities. So that was very, very, very depressing.
