Ukrainian war, Russia was close to capturing President Volodymyr Zelensky and his family in the early hours of the conflict, which broke out on February 24. This was reported by Time reporter Simon Shuster, who in April was able to closely observe the Ukrainian leader and his staff at work having spent two weeks in the presidential complex on Bankova Street, in Kiev. Read also As the journalist reports, in the first excited hours of the conflict, Russian special forces were parachuted into the district of the capital that houses the presidency complex to kill or capture Zelensky and his family. Shots could be heard from inside the president’s office, according to the long article published by the American magazine. . While Ukrainian troops battled the Russians in the surrounding streets, the presidential guard tried to seal the complex with everything they could find. A gate at the rear entrance was blocked with a pile of police barriers and plywood boards, more like a junkyard pile than a fortification. “Before that night, we had only seen things like this in the movies.” said the cabinet chief, Andriy Yermak. Very few within the presidential compound knew how to handle weapons. One was Oleksiy Arestovych, a veteran of Ukrainian military intelligence and now Zelensky’s adviser. “It was an absolute madhouse,” he said, arguing that the Russians tried twice to storm the complex and both times Zelensky, his wife and children were there. If the president were to be killed, the chain of succession in Ukraine, he expects the president of parliament to take the lead. But Ruslan Stefanchuk, who holds the post, had gone to Bankova Street on the morning of the invasion rather than find shelter.