As the Ukraine–Russia war marked four years on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy disclosed the “base” from which he directed his country’s initial response to the military offensive launched by the Kremlin.
To mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict, Zelenskyy shared a video message to the nation on his X handle. The nearly 19-minute address was filmed inside the bunker complex, offering the most detailed glimpse yet of the facility beneath the centre of the capital, Kyiv.
Vladimir Putin, according to Zelenskyy, failed to achieve his goals and could not break the people of Ukraine.
“This office – this small room in the bunker on Bankova Street – this is where I held my first conversations with world leaders at the start of the war,” he said in the national message.
The Ukrainian leader also recalled a warning from then-US President Joe Biden, who had urged him to leave Ukraine “urgently” and even offered assistance to evacuate him.
“Here I spoke with President Joe Biden, and it was right here that I heard: ‘Volodymyr, there is a threat. You need to leave Ukraine urgently. We are ready to help with that,’” Zelenskyy recalled, seated on a black leather chair in a cramped, white-walled room.
“And here I replied that I need ammunition, not a ride,” he added.
He was referring to remarks the Ukrainian embassy in Britain attributed to him on February 26, 2022 — two days after the conflict began.
“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” Zelenskyy told Biden, according to the embassy.
The bunker shown in the video appeared to be an expansive Soviet-era bomb shelter, designed to sustain the Ukrainian government in the event of a massive assault on Kyiv.
The footage revealed small rooms allocated to different branches of government — the presidency, the cabinet of ministers, and parliament. Each contained around a dozen chairs, a television screen and Ukrainian flags.
Rows of black cables ran along the walls, while large gas pipes and electrical boxes were fixed to the ceilings. Blue-and-yellow signs — the colours of the Ukrainian flag — directed people to various rooms within the maze-like tunnels.
Bright posters dotted the walls, paying tribute to Ukraine’s war effort and its soldiers — the only splash of colour amid luminous green emergency exit signs and red-and-white safety tape lining the low ceilings.
The address, posted early Tuesday, sought to rally Ukrainians by recalling the spirit of resistance that defined the nation when Russia first launched what it calls a “special military operation.”
After years of grinding war and heavy losses, Kyiv is now under pressure from US President Donald Trump, who succeeded Biden in the White House in January 2025, to accept a peace deal that would involve ceding territory to Russia. War fatigue, compounded by relentless missile and drone attacks from Moscow’s forces, is also running high.
