Half a dozen days before the invasion of Ukraine was ordered by Vladimir Putin, a few western intelligence officers were briefing on the Russian military plan. In an out of the way chain restaurant in London, a quick strategy slammed table told of a blitzkrieg to surround Kyiv and other big cities of Ukraine, followed by “kill list” operations executed by Russian FSB intelligence to remove national and local leaders of Ukraine.
The Kremlin’s intentions were not unknown to Western intelligence. However, many Russian soldiers who were about to begin Europe’s largest war since World War II had no clear understanding what would happen then. Some bored troops sold their diesel fuel in Khoyniki, Belarus (30 miles north of Ukraine where they were officially on exercise) in the week before the invasion and spent their time drinking.
Since March 2021, Russia had been amassing troops at the Ukrainian border but it was not until autumn that both American and British became certain Putin planned an invasion. Soon after, briefings began to seep out into the Western media. Warnings were passed to usually skeptical Ukrainian leaders about the critical part of this plan: a direct attack from Belarus through Chornobyl still closed off after the 1986 disaster aimed at Kyiv supported by seizing Hostomel military airbase northwest of capital which would allow Russia to drop in troops around and capture Kyiv.
It is well known that CIA Director Bill Burns met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in January warning him about Russian intentions towards Hostomel which if held could be used as bridgehead for airlifting thousands more troops into taking Kyiv but this is understood have been just one piece among several detailed intelligences shared westwards starting phase strategic cooperation that helped Ukraine prepare for its most important battle so far during this war.
Meanwhile initial planning stage by Russia was so shambolicly organised and communicated that it was easy to foil. While many troops massing at border had little idea of invasion strategy, others particularly in more elite units were told to seize Kyiv within as little as half a day. Some soldiers were issued with parade dress so they could march down Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main street, in three days after the attack believing they were conducting little more than policing operation against docile population.
The day earlier Russia launched its invasion, and control of capital was everything. As Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov recalls, many people both in West and Kremlin believed Ukraine would fall fast “that during 72 hours Kyiv will fall down”. Despite all intelligence assistance given to it by West, Ukrainian forces had been supplied lightly armed with US Javelin and UK NLAW anti-tank weapons designed for guerrilla campaign against occupying force.
The Russians had over 150k troops in their invasion force versus Ukraine’s total army size being about same number but Moscow also having greater tank numbers plus air power superiority over targets rangeable from ground or sea via missiles.
Reznikov spoke of a secret order he had seen himself, given by Russian commanders to their air assault troops that they should seize the government district “within 12 hours”. It had been taken off a dead body someone killed in days of fighting at Hostomel, probably.
The strategic airbase 15 miles northwest of Kyiv was captured on Feb 25 by Russian paratroopers landing in two waves of 10 helicopters each. But without air support, Ukraine’s ground defences around it were largely intact and managed to stop hundreds of Russian reinforcements from landing.
It was the turning point in the battle for the city but a close-run thing. Not least because Kyiv had kept most of its best forces 10 brigades of troops in the east, defending against Russia in Donbas. The defence of Kyiv had to be allowed to fall first by a small deployment of non-combat national guardsmen, said Andrii Antonyshchak, former MP and colonel of Ukraine’s National Guard who fought in Kyiv.
“I also want to highlight the feat of our Hostomel brigade, 150 people, who were not fighters,” he said. “There’d been rotation and those that were combat-ready had been sent East.” If not for this guard force and their reinforcements blocking transport planes from landing at Hostomel, Antonyshchak added: “The road to Kyiv would have been open.”
Russia was failing to exploit its military advantages because it did not know what it was up against. “Russia did not conduct a full-fledged air and missile campaign to destroy Ukrainian command and control elements and to strike concentrations of conventional forces,” said George Barros, Russia expert at the US Institute for the Study of War. Its initial air campaign lasted only seven hours when it needed to go on for 72; it focused mainly on static military targets which reflects an absence of real-time intelligence, and a belief that “the Ukrainians would not put up much of a fight“.
It did not systematically attempt to bomb the president’s official residence the Mariinsky Palace, or other government buildings in Kyiv. Instead it conducted special forces raids to capture or kill Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as in the eye-catching but ultimately over-confident assault on Hostomel. Two months later Zelenskiy told Time magazine he had been warned that Russian strike teams had parachuted into Kyiv to kill or capture him and his family.
As night fell on the first day of war, gunfights broke out across the government quarter, with two attempts by Russian forces to break in. Assault rifles and bulletproof vests were produced for Zelenskiy and his aides in chaotic scenes. “It was an absolute madhouse,” Oleksiy Arestovych, one of the president’s highest-profile advisers told the US magazine. “Automatics for everyone.”
Memorable scenes saw Zelenskiy refuse a US offer to leave “I need ammunition, not a ride” and release a handheld video after dark fell on Feb 25 confirming he and Ukraine’s leadership were alive: “We’re here,” they said.
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