Zelensky Did Not Expect Russia to Launch Full-Scale Invasion

President Volodymyr Zelensky said he did not believe Russia would launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, explaining that the absence of preventive sanctions and other measures by Kyiv’s partners had shaped his assessment before the attack.

Speaking on The Diary of a CEO, Zelensky recalled the moment he learned Russian troops had crossed the border on Feb. 24, 2022, and described his visit to Bucha after its liberation as the hardest day of the war.

“I didn’t think there would be a full-scale invasion,” Zelensky said. He questioned why partners had not taken stronger preventive action if they knew an invasion was coming.

Zelensky said he was with his family when a call from his office brought news that Russian forces were crossing the border and missiles were approaching.

“I got ready and told my wife and children that the war had begun,” he said.

Asked about the most difficult day he had experienced during the war, Zelensky recalled traveling to Bucha, outside Kyiv, after Ukrainian forces regained control of the town.

He described seeing the bodies of children, adults, and elderly people, some with their hands bound and evidence of torture. Others had been buried in pits.

Ukrainian authorities have started to exhume the bodies found in a mass grave in Bucha, to identify each of the victims pic.twitter.com/wuyQb7oyhW

— Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) April 8, 2022

“If such a mass grave were found today in the US or Britain, God forbid, containing 500 tortured people. How could anyone forgive that?” Zelensky asked.

Bucha became a symbol of atrocities committed during Russia’s occupation of areas around Kyiv in the opening weeks of the invasion.

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Ukraine Reports Record Russian War Losses in a Day

Repeated attacks by Russian foot soldiers across open ground, covered by drone swarms, are the reason for the bloody losses, Ukrainian official sources and military analysts said.

After Russian troops withdrew, journalists documented civilian bodies lying in streets and shallow graves, including victims with bound limbs and apparent execution wounds.

Bucha massacre

On Feb. 25, 2022, Russian forces broke through Ukrainian defenses and advanced on the city of Bucha accompanied by overwhelming artillery bombardment which destroyed much of Bucha’s infrastructure.

Fighting continued for two more weeks before Moscow declared it had gained complete control of the city on March 12. A Ukrainian counteroffensive was then mounted and by March 29 Ukrainian forces regained control of the city.

At the time, Ukrainian authorities found bodies laying in the streets with mass graves being discovered in parks and wooded areas around the city.

The number of those killed was given to Ukrainian authorities at the end of 2024.

The records showed that 554 civilians for the city had been killed, and another 636 from the surrounding areas, all died from violent shootings, torture, or artillery strikes.

At least 43 bodies currently remain unidentified, with more than 38 more civilians still unaccounted for, of which more than 30 are suspected of being held in Russia.