The Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service in Kyiv Region reported this on Facebook “For the second day, the 53rd State Fire and Rescue Post of Hostomel and the 35th State Fire and Rescue Unit of Bucha have been working at the scene,” the State Emergency Service informs The State Emergency Service noted that 351 fires occurred in the ecosystem of Ukraine over the past day on an area of more than 377 hectares 66 fires were extinguished in Kyiv region over the past day In Kharkiv and Zhytomyr regions - 34 fires each 21,577 ecosystem fires have already occurred The SES urged citizens not to burn dry vegetation kill animals and can cost human lives,” the rescuers emphasized As Ukrinform reported earlier, two deaths were recorded in Pereyaslav and Mostyshche as a result of fires caused by burning dry vegetation While citing and using any materials on the Internet links to the website ukrinform.net not lower than the first paragraph are mandatory citing the translated materials of foreign media outlets is possible only if there is a link to the website ukrinform.net and the website of a foreign media outlet Materials marked as "Advertisement" or with a disclaimer reading "The material has been posted in accordance with Part 3 of Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine "On Advertising" No 1996 and the Law of Ukraine "On the Media" No 2023 and on the basis of an agreement/invoice Online media entity; Media identifier - R40-01421 You don't have permissions to access this page At least six Antonov Airlines freighters were at Hostomel Airport (GML) — home to Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer Antonov — north of Kyiv with at least one destroyed and several others damaged following heavy fighting there on the first day of what the Russian Federation has declared “a special military operation.” The Antonov Airlines aircraft […] Already subscribed? 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All rights reserved Editor’s note: The three authors recorded a companion podcast for this article for the Russia Contingency the War on the Rocks members-only show that Michael Kofman hosts The battle for Hostomel Airport was the first major battle of the Russo-Ukrainian War (2022-present) and a decisive event in the war This battle started on the morning of February 24 and lasted less than 36 hours In the opening hours of the Russo-Ukrainian war Russian forces sought to seize a key airfield just 12 miles from the capital’s center Additional airborne battalions would follow on transport planes and overthrow the government or make the leadership flee Russia ultimately gained control of the airport but failed to achieve the objective of the assault were able to delay the elite Russian airborne troops long enough to prevent the Russian military from using the airfield as an airbridge to support a rapid seizure of Ukraine’s capital thought that Kyiv could fall within 72 hours Russian leadership planned a decapitation attack emphasizing speed of action but it also involved substantial risk to the forces involved with the destruction of Ukrainian armed forces as its main effort Russia attempted a coup de main targeting Ukrainian leadership with the Hostomel operation as its centerpiece Large incursions by maneuver forces along other axes were meant to take place simultaneously to generate paralysis in the Ukrainian armed forces The operation was intended as a counterpart to extensive subversion and infiltration activities with expectations in the Russian leadership that much of the Ukrainian resistance could be disabled from within Moscow assumed it would not have to fight most of the Ukrainian military conventionally parts of the military would stand down or could be readily isolated the attempt was stereotypical of prior regime change operations This risky approach to seizing the capital was also reminiscent of the initial failed attempt to secure Grozny in 1994 when a multiprong assault into the heart of the city went badly during the first Chechen War Russian operations have often featured an opening move that involved securing a sizable airbase followed by a rapid buildup of airborne forces which then attempted to secure the political leadership and set the conditions for a larger land force operation Russian intelligence had moved infiltrators into Kyiv and its suburbs All three of us have conducted fieldwork in Ukraine and we have learned via interviews that there was an extensive infiltration and support effort ahead of the invasion whose goal would have been to enable Russian airborne and special forces to quickly access the capital These pro-Russian saboteurs marked landing zones and were tasked with other supporting efforts The Russian military strategy was premised on the assumption that the right conditions had been established by intelligence services in Ukraine to enable a lightning assault that would paralyze Ukrainian leadership Russian intelligence grossly overestimated what they could accomplish as Ukrainian intelligence and police were able to neutralize important elements of the Russian network in the run-up to the operation Russian units executing the invasion appear to have had little notice regarding the plans and outlines of the operation Many were surprised that their initial deployment along the border “on exercise” had transitioned to a complex scheme for a large-scale invasion involving tight timetables and numerous axes of attack Ukraine’s military assumed a Russian attack would focus on the Donbas rather than a large-scale invasion of the whole country both forces were to some extent surprised by what they faced on the opening day of the war Russia’s operational plan called for a rapid air assault into Hostomel Airport while mechanized forces would concurrently advance on Kyiv from Belarus Hostomel Airport, a military airfield and base also called Antonov Airport, is located near Hostomel, a town in the Kyiv oblast about 12 miles northwest of Kyiv’s city center with a pre-war population of approximately 17,500. The military airbase included an 11,483 foot (3,500 meter) runway capable of supporting the largest of transport aircraft and several dozen single-story and multi-story structures — some up to six stories — and two large hangers was the home base of the Ukrainian National Guard’s 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade and located to the southeast of the runway We believe the Russian military selected Hostomel due to its large runway its location along the Russian military’s mechanized forces route of advance it having defendable terrain around the airfield and it likely having lighter defenses than other nearby airfields so that a small strike force could seize and hold the airfield long enough for reinforcements to arrive by air or ground approximately 170 kilometers north of Hostomel Their objective was to seize the airport and establish an airbridge to support the assault on the capital We believe the Russian military expected minimal resistance at Hostomel since only a small number of Ukrainian forces were left to defend the capital was still on the move from its garrison south of the city While many Ukrainian units began moving the day prior they had not yet reached their planned defensive positions when the airmobile strike force arrived at Hostomel this small group had the enormous responsibility to defend the airfield firing on pre-determined targets at pre-determined times many of the Russian missile strikes on the morning of the assault struck fixed sites and predetermined targets missing many of the Ukrainian air defense systems that began moving the day before we believe the initial Russian attack was probably far less successful than the military had expected One missed the barracks and instead cratered a nearby parade field; the second missed a nearby residential building were effective at suppressing some Ukrainian air defenses Other elements targeted Ukrainian command and control leaving the Ukrainian air force to contest the sky that morning “nap of the earth” infiltration along the Dnipro River to avoid any Ukrainian radars that might have remained operational They remained undetected until they neared the dam at the Kyiv hydroelectric powerplant just north of Kyiv around 10:30 a.m Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles downed two of the lead helicopters near the dam A damaged Ka-52 crash-landed near the river’s shore while a destroyed Mi-24 crashed into the river Trailing helicopters fired their flares and avoided further losses was unaware of approaching helicopters until he heard the chopping of the helicopters’ rotor blades the sounds of the rotors were drowned out by the sounds of rockets and machine gun fire from the attack helicopters The Ukrainian military had also moved large trucks and other vehicles onto the airfield to make it unserviceable for fixed-wing aircraft until after the vehicles had been moved The rear echelon conscripts started to believe that they could actually succeed in fighting the Russians helicopter that these soldiers would bring down the National Guard defenders appear to have downed two more KA-52s and one Mi-8s using a mix of man-portable air defenses Despite the resistance, the Russians eventually inserted the roughly 300 airborne soldiers onto the airfield in two waves of 10 helicopters each and man-portable anti-tank weapons — moved out to secure the airfield and adjacent structures Although these specific elements of the Russian airborne regularly trained for heliborne assaults there is no evidence that the Russian units involved knew the plan sufficiently in advance or had time to rehearse it The flat airfield also offered little cover or concealment for the Russian soldiers whose numbers were too few relative to the force required to control an airbase of that size the Ukrainian National Guard soldiers had consolidated near the cantonment area just prior to the Russian insertion and were preparing to withdraw after exhausting their basic load of ammunition the National Guard conscripts failed to carry or cache the ammunition necessary for an extended fight Regardless, the Ukrainian National Guard soldiers conducted a deliberate withdrawal down a relatively narrow street on the airbase and were able to escape, largely unscathed. The Ukrainians claimed not to have suffered a fatality or a significant casualty during the battle The fact that they were able to withdraw so easily leads credence to this claim as they did not appear to be slowed by the evacuation of any litter patients The 20 or so conscripts guarding the radar at the northern end of the base Surrounded by nothing but fields offering no concealed escape routes they were among the first prisoners of the war Ukrainian forces were mobilizing manpower and had a decisive advantage in fires around the capital This was a pivotal moment in the then-nascent fight but the reason why the Russian airborne abandoned their reinforcement plan is unclear It may have been due to Ukrainian artillery fire targeting the airstrip or it may have been the general inability of the Russian airborne to control the airfield the Russian military may have been concerned about losing Il-76s due to residual air defenses after having lost 6-7 helicopters during the assault The second set of Russian reinforcements were the mechanized and armor forces that were advancing toward Kyiv from Belarus on the west side of the Dnipro River. After the initial Russian mechanized forces crossed the Ukrainian border at 4 a.m. on the morning of February 24 they only had to drive 79 miles by road to reach Kyiv The Russian plan likely assumed that either the transport planes or mechanized forces would reach the airport by late afternoon The advancing mechanized forces were encountering their own difficulties while fighting along the narrow corridor through Chernobyl and Ivankiv meaning the Russian Airborne forces would be on their own through the first night The Ukrainian military recognized the strategic importance of Hostomel Airport. If Russian forces could hold the airfield and establish an airbridge, the capital would be at grave risk. Thus, Ukrainian military leadership immediately ordered a counterattack to retake the airfield with elements from the 80th Air Assault Brigade and the 3rd Special Purpose Regiment of the Special Operations Forces (SSO) consisting of veterans and other Ukrainian citizens also took up arms to support the counterattack and defend Kyiv as they did throughout the country in the early hours and days of the invasion The air assault forces launched from Zhytomyr utilizing helicopters while mechanized forces moved by land from a military base at Bila Tserkva Around 3:30 p.m., President Volodymyr Zelensky declared, “The enemy [airborne soldiers] in [Hostomel] have been blocked, and troops have received an order to destroy them.” Yet the attack would not begin until closer to sunset (around 5:30 p.m.). Around 4 p.m., CNN reporter Matthew Chance was surprised to be greeted by the Russian airborne soldiers establishing blocking positions on the perimeter of the airfield the Ukrainian counterattack started with strikes from artillery and Su-24 bombers to soften the Russian defenses some of the Ukrainian soldiers noted that the Russian airborne soldiers failed to occupy good defensive positions and found it fairly easy to dislodge them One Ukrainian soldier described engaging the minimally protected Russian forces on the airfield as being like “playing a video game just shooting and knocking them down from our positions outside the airfield.”  The following morning, February 25th, Russian ground forces reached the airport and took control again. The Eastern Military District’s grouping of forces was intended to screen the Russian airborne operation, encircling the city from the west and preventing reinforcement. Ukrainian officials initially denied claims that Russia controlled the airport but by the end of the day Ukrainian officials admitted that Russia controlled the airport after the Minister of Defense declared that the airfield was too damaged to be used The battle of Hostomel was arguably the most critical battle of the Russo-Ukrainian war to date Although the Ukrainian military was unable to maintain control of the airfield the National Guard conscripts delayed the assault long enough to prevent Russia from immediately using Hostomel airport as an airbridge Ukrainian forces north of the city also delayed the mechanized battalions advancing south from Belarus long enough to create a window for Ukrainian forces to counterattack and deliberately crater Hostomel’s runway enough to make it unusable The failure at Hostomel was compounded by the slowness of the Russian advance from Belarus which forced the Russian troops to attempt to seize the capital without the element of surprise But based on how events played out over the next month — through a series of seemingly haphazard and uncoordinated attacks in Irpin and other Kyiv suburbs — it appears that the Russian leadership had not developed a serious alternate plan Ukraine lacked suitable defenses and defensive forces on the city’s western side during the first week of the war sticking with the original plan to assault from Hostomel into the city center They also failed to complete an encirclement of the city which allowed Ukrainian forces to reinforce the capital The Russian sustainment problem was born not of a general logistical failure but of effective Ukrainian efforts to stymie the Russian advance from Belarus including destroying bridges and flooding rivers The lack of trained infantry and the losses suffered in the early weeks of the war would have a lasting impact on the Russian campaign in 2022 which suffered from a structural deficit in manpower especially forces capable of fighting in urban terrain This battle offers many lessons: It demonstrated the necessity of having sufficient supporting fires — from artillery and/or aircraft — for deep strike operations Russian forces were vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery fire coming from the capital with no ability to counter their fire since no artillery had been included in the air assault the airborne forces failed to seize and secure the airfield quickly enough to support the assault on the capital or the plan to take on Ukraine’s air defense network Although it had success in the short term in initially taking on Ukrainian air defenses the Russian VKS did not prioritize training to destroy ground-based air defenses as a key mission given that NATO militaries banked on attaining air superiority and had divested ground-based air defense in their force structure Having failed to achieve a knockout blow to Ukraine’s air defense Russian forces were not able to gain the air supremacy or air superiority that they likely expected to enjoy for the duration of the war This pivotal battle also illustrates the primacy of political assumptions in shaping the concept of operations and military strategy — in this case Russian forces attempted a high-risk operation Had they invaded Ukraine as a joint force operation assuming a prolonged conventional campaign and extensive resistance Yet while many of the Russian assumptions behind the invasion plan were fundamentally incorrect the initial assault was not doomed to failure A stubborn defense and counterattack by Ukrainian forces at Hostomel was decisive in scuttling Russian attempts to conduct a decapitation attack Had the Russian operation at Hostomel gone differently and Russian forces entered the capital in those early hours it may have had a cascade effect on the course of the overall invasion The details above remain an early and at best imperfect attempt to capture this history What they should illustrate is how contingent history truly is and citizens can and did have a profound impact in a pivotal battle that would help decide the course of the war Michael Kofman is a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment Previously he served as Director of the CNA Russia Studies Program along with prior research fellowships at Modern War Institute Image: Kyiv City State Administration Correction: An earlier version of this article mis-identified the commander of the units defending Hostomel airport The article has been updated with the correct name Signing up for this newsletter means you agree to our data policy Home page » Topics » War » Restoration » Successful Restoration Сases in Hostomel One remarkable sign of Ukrainian society’s evolution is its people’s initiative and willingness to take responsibility This tendency is especially evident during wartime when state authorities remain overwhelmed and focused on national defence the heroes highlighted in this article emerge as true role models demonstrating how everyone can contribute to the reconstruction of their country Hostomel is a village in the Kyiv suburbs in the eastern Polissia region In the first days of a full-scale invasion the Russians planned to use it to transfer their troops for the future capture of Kyiv the airfield became one of the crucial sites where their plan faltered as the Ukrainian army successfully repelled the enemy Although the Russian advance of Kyiv suffered a defeat the occupiers caused many ills during their month-long occupation When the Russians eventually fled under the pressure of Ukrainian defenders and the destroyed AN-225 “Mriya” – the world’s largest plane In one of our articles dedicated to resistance to the Russian occupation, we explore Hostomel’s experiences during the first month of the all-out invasion. This text brings the village’s reconstruction into focus. In the “Restoration” project we typically interview local authorities who could reveal the big picture we focus on two cases of individual initiative influencing recovery The first is represented by the residents of the Pokrovskyi residential complex who chipped in to restore the damaged façade of their house The second case features a musician whose house was destroyed by a Russian missile he chose to use his situation to demonstrate an alternative construction approach Liudmyla Kaminska resides in one of the houses damaged during the occupation of the Pokrovskyi residential estate in Hostomel The complex suffered direct missile hits and extensive fire that swept through several upper floors the residents restored the façade independently and asserted significant repairs from state authorities Liudmyla moved to Hostomel from Kyiv in pursuit of a quieter life She fondly recalls what life in the residential estate was like before the full-scale invasion and everything around was developing rapidly All the places were inhabited and planted with flowers and trees.” everything changed dramatically on February 24 as the house is located just one kilometre from Antonov Airport Residents of the upper floors could observe the unfolding battle from their windows Liudmyla evacuated from Hostomel on February 25 She left under fire and spent five hours to reach Kyiv – a trip that usually takes about an hour Russian military vehicles were already parked near the Pokrovskyi residential complex “The Russian tank simply positioned itself on the bridge and began firing directly at the house.” Photo source: Facebook page of the Pokrovskyi residential complex Most of the residents managed to evacuate beforehand Those who remained spent the night in the basements as the Russian military later entered the apartments forcibly evicting people and looting their property “[The Russians] plundered the entire house When people began to return after the de-occupation they found not only the house damaged from shelling but also apartment doors busted open with dirt and garbage scattered everywhere “When I saw it for the first time as we were driving in from the Vorzel direction It was scary and unclear whether this house could ever be restored because the destruction scale was terrible,” Liudmyla recalls The house residents arrived gradually and started cleaning inside and outside the building The acrid smell of burning lingered in the entrance until the summer of 2022 the neighbours started raising money to replace the windows in the entrance hall they reached out to the village council for help “The proposals announced to us [made it clear that] that recovery will take a long time We had to either initiate something immediately or wait a long time.” The real estate developer made a similar offer along with two other residents of the residential complex didn’t give up on attempts to find other options and restore the building nonetheless the then-head of the Hostomel military administration They helped to dismantle the hanging elements of the façade that could fall at any moment Mr Dumenko also facilitated the contact between the residents and company representatives of the Leroy Merlin that distributes construction materials The company’s representative office in Ukraine provided materials of significant worth an issue arose with the official transfer of the materials to the community as the company had not exited the Russian market the military administration aided in assessing the technical condition of the building raising funds and transferring payments to contractors it is possible to restore the building façade facing the stadium for more than 700,000 hryvnias [around $17,300] while the conservation would require 300–400,000 [roughly $9,900] hryvnias Approximately 40 % of the house residents came together to make the latest option a reality “We reached out to everyone looking for benefactors but almost no charitable funds were attracted I mean that all [we managed to restore] was thanks to the funds of the residents of our building.” Liudmyla states there is still no chance of receiving state compensation for the funds invested in the restoration “The state provides an opportunity to receive reimbursement when the apartment is destroyed and you have not yet repaired anything When you have already engaged in reconstruction on your own and have bills and certificates of rendered services the state held a tender for the major renovation of the building Internal work began in October but was later suspended due to suspicions of fraud involving the contracted Hrynkevych family’s company The reconstruction is scheduled to continue in 2024 following a repeated tender and the development of a new project that considers the work already completed the new project is set to repair the balconies and the inter-floor ceilings Liudmyla assures that she does not regret taking up the recovery efforts She claims people needed someone to bring them together because it’s always easier to engage when someone else has already started the common cause “You step in and start encouraging: ‘Come on let’s give it a try!’ When there are people who are willing to help you and are ready to share the effort Some of us were doing one thing while others were doing another.” most of the residents have returned to the building “[By the end of 2022,] there were at most 25–30 % [of the residents] you will see that many people have come back home.” The publicity of the case played an important role: the woman launched a Facebook page to post reports and the community’s achievements thousands of people see it and pay attention to it anyway also contributed to the result we have today.” Liudmyla advises those who are willing to undertake reconstruction to gather like-minded people first involving as many people as possible is essential She believes that one proactive person may be ignored but if dozens are putting effort into searching for opportunities to recover Valerii aims to personally attest that it is possible to build a house quickly and that frame construction is not a temporary measure but a proven global practice his story of reconstruction should be scalable “‘Kharchyshyn is building’ is primarily a social impact project: together with you Valerii’s house serves as a direct example from which the others whose homes were destroyed by the Russian troops can draw inspiration to complete their own projects. Valerii funds the construction on his own. Concurrently, he provides informational support for the Natalia Kovalenko Foundation fundraising campaign aiming to raise 2.5 million hryvnias to construct housing for the large family of Yulia Havrylenko from Moshchun whose husband serves in the Ukrainian army after completing the first stage of construction it will become clear how much money is precisely needed This amount will likely be slightly higher if the same construction project is used in the future instead of developing individual ones it will reduce the cost of further construction hopes are high for the eVidnovlennia program which provides compensation to individuals whose homes were damaged in the war “We did not suffer due to our own carelessness Our houses burned down because the enemy came here to destroy us and our houses we shall either [rebuild] at the expense of reparations or the state will compensate us and eventually recover these funds from reparations.” the current challenge consists of the fact that the state is still looking for a solution because its available offers are not suitable for everyone the state currently allocates money to purchase ready-made housing although some people would prefer to use it to rebuild on the same site where they used to have a house “It is like we are producing some kind of ‘preserves’ meaning it will become a preserved region because everything is in ruins there our task is to restore it and make it better” Valerii says that when he first set out to rebuild his house, he had no funds because the band “Druha Rika” was donating all its earnings to the military. However, a businessman friend stepped in and provided $35,000 to rebuild his home This money became a symbol of the beginning of his reconstruction efforts Valerii rebuilt the new house on the old foundation but redesigned a part of the area as a terrace; while the previous one had 220 m² “The house looks spacious inside due to the gable ceiling it might look like three sparrowhawks assembled,” Valerii says Valerii plans to build houses within the project that are also approximately 100 m2 in size This will be sufficient to provide comfortable living conditions for families with two or three children Although Valerii is a musician by occupation he has experience in building frame houses It is basically insulation and wood or OSB (oriented strand board which is how they do it everywhere in Canada I have never seen a single private house or a cottage made of brick or foam concrete but it is a widespread practice worldwide.” a family often spends half its life building a house for whose sake this entire initiative began [the time] when we live in this house and give birth to children […] My eldest son will not live here anymore although he still has his room here,” Valerii says it is worth reconsidering the approach to building housing so it does not consume time and money that could be invested elsewhere there are always better opportunities to invest in Not coincidentally, one of the videos on the project’s YouTube channel is titled “My house was delivered in a minibus”. Valerii is building his house based on prefab technology assembling pre-made elements like a constructor set The human factor in this process is minimised the elements are cut with CNC (computer numerical control) machines down to millimetre precision who will upload it into a program and cut your house into pieces that you will assemble,” he says Valerii assembled the house elements on the spot because delivering the whole house to the site would be challenging due to the landscape specifics “No crane will get here as there is no drive-in The only chance was to drive through the forest but no one could guarantee it would not get stuck in the sand or the soil we decided not to bring a ready-made house (there are such technologies) but to use a prefabricated modular construction made of small puzzles.” Valerii manages the construction and takes part in the works not only out of personal interest but also due to the overload of construction crews across the country the current situation in Ukraine can be described as follows: there is a lot to rebuild but there are not enough people to do it – there is a shortage of construction workers The guys who used to work [in construction] are already mobilised.” There is one poignant detail in the history of Valerii’s house construction: the pines that once grew in the adjacent area were cut down and burned during shelling so he redesigned them into boards for the façade of his new house “It’s reminiscent of the Japanese shou sugi ban technology Coordinator of the partnerships department: Involved in the preparation of the material 46 volunteers Project support: Fundacja Euromaidan-Warszawa Use of materials is only permitted upon providing the source: Ukrainer.net Дизайн — Артем Зубкевич Розробка — Deluxcode and Hostomel – the names of these Ukrainian cities spread worldwide in the first days of the full-scale invasion Those who witnessed these events firsthand remember everything down to the smallest details RBC-Ukraine publishes the stories of a family from Bucha who survived the occupation and a veteran who defended Irpin in the first weeks of Russia's large-scale invasion of our land Russia brought war to every Ukrainian home and Hostomel were among the first cities to take the hit — places that became symbols of resilience and resistance against the occupiers Fierce battles were fought in Hostomel over the airport which the enemy sought to use as a foothold for the rapid capture of Kyiv destroying dozens of enemy helicopters and preventing Russian troops from securing the area The atrocities committed by the enemy in Bucha became known worldwide while the battles for Irpin went down in the history of modern warfare Despite the immense pressure from the enemy thousands of defenders continue to protect the country today — marking the fourth year of the large-scale invasion and the 11th year of the war RBC-Ukraine spoke with a veteran of the Russia-Ukraine war and a family from Bucha who are still waiting for a new home which lasted from late February to early April 2022 Russian troops unleashed terror on the civilian population — people were shot in the streets After Bucha was liberated by Ukrainian forces hundreds of civilian bodies were found on the streets and in mass graves Many of the victims were discovered with their hands tied and gunshot wounds to the head Investigations by international organizations confirmed the mass killings in Bucha insists on bringing those responsible to justice The crimes committed by Russia in Bucha at the beginning of the invasion became some of the first pieces of evidence that Russia was waging war not only against the Ukrainian army but also against civilians The Patkivskyi family was at home on the corner of Franka Street in Bucha when the invasion began on February 24 who was not even two years old at the time survived the occupation and threats from Russian soldiers and were left without neighbors— Russia had killed them they heard the news that the war had begun then picked up my daughter and granddaughter We watched as helicopters landed at Antonov We didn’t leave here until March 10," he says The Patkivskyi family survived the occupation evacuation and loss of their home (photo: RBC-Ukraine) The family spent the days of occupation mostly in the basement they stayed underground for extended periods Russian troops moved into the neighboring house — these were tank crews they drove a tank into the neighbor's house You have ten minutes for us to let you out we're staying here now.' I ran to the neighbors and my husband went through the forest to the cellar to grab documents Our daughter collected what children's things she could quickly grab," Hanna recalls They were led to the railway under the barrel of a gun and his rifle almost dragged on the ground as he cocked it There was a place where people used to dig for clay I understood that if I could push her in time at least the children would get bruised but would stay alive," says Hanna they heard gunshots but didn’t know who was firing they found out — Russian snipers were sitting nearby These were the same snipers who shot people in the streets A dozen Russian soldiers surrounded the family Vasyl was the first to return home — on April 11 I was back on the street — nothing was left There was a destroyed tank here and a pile of burned-out cars there We filed a report that we had nowhere to live," Vasyl recalls Hanna near the house destroyed by Russians (photo: RBC-Ukraine/Vitalii Nosach) The houses opposite remained empty—neighbors who lived there had been executed four more there — four directly across from us," says Hanna One of the Patkivskyi family's neighbors was the Shepilo family The Russians brutally killed them for no reason it was revealed that the teacher's hand had been severed up to the elbow elderly residents who kept a farm were murdered and thrown into a ditch the Patkivskyi family's house is being gradually rebuilt the process is slow – the new home for war victims is being constructed by the state for the second year now "Some installation works are still unfinished she did not receive it because they did not know if we were alive Only when we provided documents did she finally get those 860 hryvnias," says Hanna they were supposed to be settled in modular houses on the "Warsaw Highway" – the Warsaw route that runs through the city Lithuania provided individual modular cabins in Bucha and we are very grateful that we are at home I was happy that I could take shelter from the snow and rain They were advised to turn on the heaters to warm everything up They also washed everything inside three times with vinegar The daughter and granddaughter moved to an apartment after some time The family is still living in a modular house waiting for the house to be rebuilt (photo: RBC-Ukraine) Hanna still cannot comprehend the horrific atrocities committed by the Russians in Bucha "No one expected that they would shoot, kill, and torture," she says. "How can I forgive? We have somewhat learned to live in these conditions and under air alarms, but it is still all right before our eyes. We will recover. There is no way Ukraine will not recover. I don’t believe in that. Little by little, gradually, but we will rebuild. The most important thing is for everyone to return home The landing of Russian paratroopers in Hostomel on February 24 became one of the key events of the first days of the invasion The enemy tried to quickly capture the airport to transfer troops to Kyiv inflicted significant losses on the enemy and thwarted their plan for a blitzkrieg The military held back the paratroopers under constant airstrikes artillery and reinforcements ultimately expelled the enemy a serviceman of the "Rubizh" Operational Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU) He witnessed those events and actively resisted the enemy He was captured by the Russians and saw firsthand what they did at the Hostomel airport he was exchanged and is now back defending Ukraine we were conducting various maneuvers in the airport area I didn’t take it seriously; I thought they were just exaggerating Serving as a gunner-operator in an armored personnel carrier (APC) Dmytro was assigned to duty a couple of days before the invasion it was his last "normal" duty before the full-scale war very worried about what was being reported in the news He reassured her but asked her to pack a bag and go to relatives in western Ukraine just in case a defender of the Hostomel airport and a soldier of the "Rubizh" Operational Brigade of the NGU (photo: RBC-Ukraine) he woke up to his comrades shouting: "Alarm alarm!" He thought it was just another drill He remained calm because they had been training daily for a month "We started up the APC and began inflating the tires Dmytro was interested in cryptocurrency and around 6 a.m. he checked Telegram channels and saw the entire market collapsing This only happened when a major global event occurred People were saying that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine had begun "The war felt real for the first time when a cruise missile hit one of our brigade’s barracks I realized that all military units across the country were being attacked," he adds The soldiers positioned themselves inside and around the airport in the tree lines They heard reports of enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups (DRGs) operating in their area There were also reports that Russian soldiers disguised as Ukrainian troops with red armbands were in the area "We were loading machine-gun belts when I first heard the sound of helicopters I thought it was Ukrainian Special Operations Forces or military intelligence reinforcements I didn’t think the enemy would be so bold as to break through to us," Dmytro recalls The soldier says more than half were attack helicopters – Ka-52s and Mi-24s Then came transport helicopters carrying troops and ammunition Consequences of enemy arrivals in Hostomel (photo: Getty Images) and the Russian soldiers were waving at us This continued until the first shot was fired from our side," he adds the now-famous soldier with the call sign "Phara" fired a shot from a MANPADS Igla The first helicopters were shot down right over the Kyiv Reservoir I thought it was impossible to take it down – it’s like an armored tank in the sky I saw our anti-aircraft guns damaging many helicopters and we were firing right into them," says Dmytro He realized this was a paratrooper landing and that between 300 and 500 Russian soldiers were storming the airport there were no more than a hundred Ukrainian defenders there The command decided to withdraw the National Guard troops Some soldiers were positioned at the far end of the runway That’s where the enemy paratroopers were landing and where the assault on the airport began The road to them was cut off," says the defender Dmytro decided to withdraw with his unit to the area of the village of Ozera he did not know that a couple of helicopters of the Russian military had mistakenly landed there instead of on the runway of Hostomel Airport but it played a cruel joke on Dmytro and his comrades A Russian clearing group was following them literally on their heels we saw the silhouettes of Russian servicemen ahead of us The one closing our group signaled to me with gestures that there were already Russian servicemen behind us," says the National Guardsman They decided that they would fight to the last The soldier recalls: "I thought — that's it Dmytro and other captured comrades spent about two weeks in captivity they learned about everything happening at the airfield from the Russians themselves no one was really dealing with the captives—the enemy was fortifying positions He heard how fierce battles took place near the checkpoint on February 25 The Russians kept shouting that a tank was about to break through Dmytro learned that Ukrainian servicemen had tried to rescue them the Russians destroyed the world's largest cargo plane "There were massive shellings from our side they (the Russians) were constantly running into the bunker they started building fortifications and digging trenches it led to nothing," the interlocutor recalls He especially wants to highlight the work of Ukrainian aviation at that time a Ukrainian pilot flew out daily to bomb the runway They called him "kamikaze": he continuously refueled but he did everything possible and impossible to prevent Russian troops from securing their position in Hostomel the soldier remembers these events as one of the defining moments when thanks to the heroic efforts of the Ukrainian Armed Forces the Russian advance on the capital was prevented Even their highly experienced airborne troops faced fierce resistance and found themselves trapped under constant strikes from our artillery and MLRS The actions of Ukrainian troops bought time for reinforcements This became key to the defense of the Kyiv region the Russians lost their most valuable resource — time That is why the defense of the capital was successful Dmytro himself spent an entire year in captivity he was held in complete informational isolation The Russians constantly tried to convince him that Kyiv had allegedly already been captured But he held onto hope that all of it was a lie "I have lost so many comrades. But their deaths must not be in vain. I want the fighting to end on the most favorable terms for us. Victory, for me, means negotiations from a position of strength so that our comrades stop dying," the defender emphasizes Irpin became one of the key cities that held back the advance of Russian troops in Kyiv the enemy tried to break through the city but encountered fierce resistance The battles in Irpin lasted throughout March Residents were evacuated through the destroyed bridge in Romanivka often under fire from Russian sniper— this route was called the Road of Life Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive becoming one of the symbols of Ukrainian resistance and resilience A veteran of the Russia-Ukraine war and a participant in the battles for Irpin Volodymyr Parkhoniuk now heads Veteran Space.Irpin I believe I can contribute much more in this field," he notes A veteran of the Russia-Ukraine war and head of the veteran space Volodymyr Parkhoniuk (photo: RBC-Ukraine) Our interlocutor is a soldier with extensive experience He defended Ukraine long before the full-scale war began we walked through places in Irpin that became historic battlegrounds he recalled one of the first battles he participated in at the beginning of Russia’s invasion "When the Russians broke into the city from the Synerhiya residential complex they tried to go through the parking lot and the water utility into the city itself Higher command ordered us to fall back to Irpin The enemy's numerical superiority meant that we had to preserve our forces for future battles rather than waste them on a single engagement the veteran points to a fence still riddled with bullet holes—a stark reminder of the horrifying events that took place here nearly three years ago This was a former checkpoint in the military called the Karavan Gala one of the most significant and brutal battles for Irpin took place here Russian invaders tried to penetrate the city through the military hospital My position with a comrade was right behind this fence Vitaliy Popovych (Volodymyr’s comrades—ed.) was wounded and taken prisoner," the veteran recalls Ihor Krotkykh stood shoulder to shoulder with Volodymyr and died in his arms our defenders managed to eliminate many Russian troops in that battle The residential complex near which fierce battles with Russian forces took place (photo: Getty Images) "They broke through from the military hospital area and tried to cross the road into Irpinski Lypky but most of them were left lying on the road they were trying to cross," says Volodymyr the area near the Irpinski Lypky residential complex became a crucial strategic point in Irpin’s defense Russian troops attempted to break through this area to gain control and expand their zone of occupation trying to advance through nearby roads and territories During one of the most intense battles on March 21 the enemy's objective was to break through the city's defenses in this sector "Tanks kept rolling out from Hostomel’s motor depot but then it became clear that they were deliberately destroying cover to secure a landing for their forces This spot was meant to serve as a reinforcement area for personnel arriving from Hostomel They were already in Bucha and were supposed to break through and fortify in a strategic location," he adds During the battles that spring, nearly 70% of Irpin’s buildings were damaged—from private homes to apartment complexes. After liberation, the city united, held meetings with residents Commissions were formed to assess buildings for repair suitability when the city was surrounded by Russian troops thousands of Irpin residents were saved by the Road of Life The only way out of the city was through the Romanivka neighborhood where people risked their lives to escape the shelling and mines This route became the only hope for hundreds of civilians during those dark days Stoyanka and Bucha were occupied by Russians The only way out was through the Romanivka neighborhood were able to escape from a city engulfed in intense battles," says Volodymyr she carried out combat missions assigned to her by command Their children and mother-in-law remained in a basement until March 12 Volodymyr evacuated them along that very Road of Life Footage of the evacuation through the bridge went viral worldwide This route was called the Road of Life (photo: Getty Images) on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Volodymyr has one main thought — about victory He also thinks about helping veterans and rebuilding the city and the country Despite media discussions about ceasefire negotiations he is convinced that Ukraine must fight until the end until full victory and the restoration of the 1991 borders we will always remember who was involved in these events he remembers the comrades he fought with to defend Ukraine He says volunteers are people who took up arms not for financial incentives but to protect their city and country Everyone united for one goal — to drive out the enemy and prevent the city from falling Someone could give away their last possession if needed The same applied to food—we shared everything and helped civilians with medicine and bread The concept of 'comrade-in-arms' is not just a word A comrade is someone you share your last piece of bread with and do for them what you might not even do for yourself," Volodymyr firmly believes The veteran remembers fallen comrades at the Alley of Fallen Heroes in Irpin (photo: RBC-Ukraine) At the Alley of Fallen Heroes on the pedestrian square in central Irpin the faces of those who gave their lives in battles for Ukraine are displayed today "More than 170 guys from Irpin gave their lives for Ukraine’s freedom and independence They are true patriots and defenders of Ukraine We must always remember them," the veteran emphasizes This article was originally published by War on the Rocks Read the full article and more from War on the Rocks Please double check your information and try again Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker I received an unexpected call from Odesa from my brother Andriy: “The war has begun they're bombing here too!" My son Ivan and I lived in Hostomel and 7 km from our apartment there is a summer house where my mother lived At about 6:30 we were already at my mother's confusion and hope that everything will end soon Neighbors with children from Kyiv began to come to their dachas to stay away from the city but we all made a mistake and fell into a trap The dacha settlement became a war zone on the outskirts of Kyiv At 11:30 a squadron of helicopters flew over our houses towards Vyshgorod and Kyiv flying very low over rooftops and treetops They flew so low that the pilot from one of the helicopters turned to look at me Shooting and explosions didn't stop all day long We began to hide from the shelling and sleep in our house in the sauna on the floor under the benches this is the first floor and there were no windows We spread blankets on the floor and slept in clothes so that at any moment we could run out of the house in case of fire or destruction from a shell We learned that all the bridges across the Irpin River had been blown up so that Russian troops would not enter the capital Bucha and Irpin was separated from Kyiv by the river Now we are occupied and completely cut off from Kyiv explosions and shooting are heard all around it is too late and there is nowhere to run Everything around rumbled and whistled from bullets We studied the sounds of different guns and learned how to navigate whether the battle is far or very close and where the shells explode Where are the missiles flying from and where are they falling we talked with our neighbors and learned that a "green corridor" for evacuation from Hostomel would soon be announced and this is 7 km across the completely occupied territory and the shooting could start at any moment during the journey I heard the piercing whistle of a missile very My friend Andriy shouted – "Lie down!" pressed me to the ground and covered with himself The missile flew into the house next to us The concrete fence protected us from injuries This missile attack was a turning point for me I decided that if I didn’t make an attempt to evacuate now then I could die under the rubble of my own house during the next missile strike We quickly threw the essentials and the cat in the carrier into the car From this moment begins the most terrible and dangerous hours of our lives After about a kilometer we saw soldiers with weapons I slowed down and raised my hand from the open window A soldier signaled me with a machine gun to drive closer I pulled up and got out of the car with my hands up show everyone the documents and give our phones and gave them my son's old phone as my own I drove very slowly and carefully looked at the road shot and crushed civilian cars stood on the roadside I was afraid to turn my head and look there When we arrived at the appointed place of evacuation came from the nearest villages and Hostomel in the hope of being saved some old paralyzed woman was being transported in a garden wheelbarrow A shell hit the crossroads where we came from Most of the houses on this street were already destroyed or burned down I began to run down the street in search of a surviving house and then people from behind the fence waved their hands at me and shouted "Here his wife Zhanna and their nephew Roma warmly welcomed us and shared their dinner with us The news said that today there will be another attempt to evacuate people We got into the car and drove outside to the evacuation site Someone said that we should leave the cars and go on foot through the blown-up crossing where evacuation buses will be waiting on the other side And then I saw two cars coming in the opposite direction It was clear from the men's faces that they knew where they were going One driver said he knew a way around the damaged section of the road it was like a scary movie about the end of the world There was not a single whole house along the road a lot of shot and burned civilian cars on the roadway corpses lay on the streets covered with blankets We drove past the house where we lived with my son There was not a single whole window in the house and the entire facade of the building was full of holes from automatic fire and various shells I'm afraid to imagine what would have happened if we hadn't left for the dacha on the morning of February 24 Our first two cars managed to pass this intersection but I did not have time and the tanks began to turn right at us I saw civilian vehicles crushed by tanks on the road and I understood that this could happen to us too and everywhere we saw this terrible picture: ruins at the sight of Russian soldiers at checkpoints brave men from our column got out of the cars with their hands up and asked to let us through I learned that during these days of evacuation a lot of cars with women and children were shot and blown up Finally we saw our Ukrainian blue and yellow flags a cat and in the clothes in which they ran out of the house on March 9 Olena did not have time to take anything with her But she brought the most valuable thing she has – her family Source: https://bit.ly/3QrsAbY Before being shot in the leg by a Russian sniper Eduard Lysovysk witnessed and captured in photos and videos the atrocities unfolding around him His images and testimony together form a powerful and unusually comprehensive diary of those bloody days in an area now under Russian control 25 FebruaryA day after the invasion began on 25 February Eduard noticed a car with shattered windows and a leaking radiator outside his apartment block He went to check it out and realised the bullets had also found a human target inside An 18-year-old boy was slumped in the passenger seat said his grandmother was trying to drive them both to safety when Russian forces opened fire The young man had been hit in the eye and killed almost instantly; she kept going for nearly three kilometres or in hope of reaching medics who could save the young man Top: A car driven by a grandmother travelling with her 18-year-old grandson which was shot at by Russian forces as it tried to leave Hostomel on 25 February The grandson died but the grandmother survived Above: The grave of the 18-year-old who was shot in his eye the head of the graveyard and the gravedigger dug the grave They called an ambulance that took her to hospital Above left: A picture of a neighbouring apartment building from 27 February Right: Clouds of black smoke rise on the edge of Hostomel on 27 February 28 FebruaryA Hostomel resident with shopping bags of humanitarian aid provided by the town’s administration Clockwise from top left: Preserved food inside the Lysovyks’ apartment and family pictures on the wall of the Lysovyks’ apartment 1 MarchRefugees have repeatedly described Russian soldiers shooting at their cars even when marked with white flags or carrying signs saying “children” One video from a motorway outside town captures apparent evidence of an assault on civilians although all the dead or injured occupants had been taken away 2 MarchAs the battle over the town intensified Eduard filmed workers sent by mayor Yuriy Prylypko potatoes and other food to trapped residents and asked them why they were not distributing guns instead so that residents could fight Above left: Eduard meets six Ukrainian soldiers who pass through the town on 2 March This was the only time he saw Ukrainian soldiers in the week before the Russians arrived Right: An official from the town’s administration gives out jars of preserves to Hostomel’s trapped residents “They told me the Russians had taken over the national guard base inside Hostomel where all the guns were stored and so there were no weapons to give out.” Days later Prylypko would be shot dead by the invaders at a bread distribution point Above left: A Russian armoured vehicle in Hostomel on 3 March just after Russian forces won control over the city Right: A Russian armoured vehicle driving past Eduard’s apartment building in Hostomel Russian soldiers moved into their apartment block; screenshots from the building’s CCTV show them milling in the hallway and they saw the group place something outside their door Screenshots from the Lysovyks’ CCTV cameras show Russian troops moving into their apartment building The Lysovysks spent the night hiding in their bathroom and in the morning prepared to escape over their balconies Eduard helped 59-year-old Iryna out and over to the bomb shelter he stood at the edge of a crowd at the bomb shelter door – many of them children – to make a phone call and my leg just collapsed out to the side,” said Eduard speaking from his hospital bed in Bila Tserkva where he was taken for treatment because his injuries are so complex 6 MarchTwo sleepless days after Eduard Lysovysk was carried into a basement bomb shelter his thigh bone shattered by a Russian sniper’s bullet soldiers from the army who had shot him came to visit Heavy shelling outside had pinned him and dozens of neighbours into the cramped shelter where he would spend an entire week in agony waiting for a chance to flee the neighbourhood he once called home Eduard and Iryna Lysovyk in the underground shelter The Russian soldiers stood over the man they had injured his leg tied up with bandages torn from bedsheets and held in place with a makeshift splint and told Lysovysk: “We have come to protect you.” The Russian medic gave them a single dose of antibiotics There was no offer of medical treatment or evacuation and it would be another five days before he saw a doctor Above left: Selfie taken by Eduard Lysovyk in Bila Tserkva’s hospital No another civilian injured while standing on the street when a Russian shell hit on 19 March Eduard Lysovyk recovering in Bila Tserkva Hospital No The battles for Hostomel and Moshchun thwarted Russia's plan to take "Kyiv in three days." They changed the course of the operation, according to a statement by the head of the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, Kyrylo Budanov, in an interview with Ukrinform two events that changed the course of Russia's operation took place in Hostomel and Moshchun "The heart of the plan was the landing of a tactical airborne assault force using a landing method on the strip in Hostomel we disrupted these plans together with the National Guard units which were stationed there and engaged in the first battles we created conditions that prevented the Russians from landing a single aircraft there," Budanov said noting that the second key event was Moshchun — had Moshchun fallen Budanov also highlighted the battles in Irpin as another significant event as they partially split the Russian forces You can also read RBC-Ukraine’s feature on a family from Bucha that survived the occupation and a veteran who defended Irpin in the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion ShareSaveCommentBusinessAerospace & DefenseFive Brave Ukrainian MiG Pilots Blunted the Russian Attack On Kyiv On Day One Of The War. Not All Of Them Survived.ByDavid Axe ShareSaveComment@font-face{font-family: "Schnyder"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders-bold-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders/schnyders-bold-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Merriweather"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/merriweather/merriweather-bold-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/merriweather/merriweather-bold-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Euclid"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/euclidcircularb/euclidcircularb-bold-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/euclidcircularb/euclidcircularb-bold-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Schnyder"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders-light-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders-light-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Merriweather"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/merriweather/merriweather-regular-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/merriweather/merriweather-regular-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Euclid"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/euclidcircularb/euclidcircularb-regular-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .color-accent{color: #FFFFFF;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.bg-accent #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .bg-accent{background-color: #FFFFFF;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.color-base #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .color-base{color: #000000;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.bg-base #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .bg-base{background-color: #000000;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.font-accent #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .font-accent{font-family: Schnyder,"Noto Sans","Droid Sans","Helvetica Neue",Corbel,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.font-size p #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .font-size p{font-size: 36px;} #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed.color-body #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed .color-body{color: #333333;} #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed.color-body-border{border-top-color: rgba(51,51,51 #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed .color-body-border{border-top-color: rgba(51,51,51 0.8);} .bg-body{background-color: #333333;} #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed.font-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed .font-accent{font-family: Euclid,"Noto Sans","Droid Sans","Helvetica Neue",Corbel,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.color-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed .color-accent{color: #333333;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.bg-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed .bg-accent{background-color: #333333;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.font-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed .font-accent{font-family: Euclid,"Noto Sans","Droid Sans","Helvetica Neue",Corbel,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.font-size #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed .font-size{font-size: 26px;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.color-accent #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .color-accent{color: #000000;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.bg-accent #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .bg-accent{background-color: #000000;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.color-base #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .color-base{color: #FFFFFF;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.bg-base #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .bg-base{background-color: #FFFFFF;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.font-base #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .font-base{font-family: Schnyder,"Noto Sans","Droid Sans","Helvetica Neue",Corbel,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.font-size #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .font-size{font-size: 54px;}Lt The Kremlin had a bold—some might say reckless—plan for swiftly defeating the Ukrainian armed forces and toppling the government in Kyiv involving simultaneous heliborne and armored assaults on Kyiv local territorial troops and fighter pilots fought hard in the first hours of the Russian assault starting in the early morning hours on Feb They succeeded in slowing the Russians and buying time for Ukrainian reinforcements to arrive But many of them, including Ukrainian air force MiG-29 pilot Lt. Col. Vyacheslav Yerko, died in the fight Yerko’s story in particular is a window into those heady early hours of Feb when the Russian gambit for a short war came close to succeeding—and then spectacularly backfired The Russian rockets and missiles struck first Long-range munitions rained down on Ukrainian bases and airfields Among the targets in the pre-dawn hours was Vasylkiv air base Vasylkiv is home to the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade one of four brigades operating Ukraine’s roughly 50 twin-engine the Ukrainian air force had spread out its jets riding in 24 Mil Mi-8 transport helicopters escorted by 10 Mil Mi-24 and Kamov Ka-52 gunships flew at low level toward Hostomel airport on the northwest edge of Kyiv just 25 miles north of Vasylkiv The heliborne soldiers were supposed to seize and hold Hostomel and allow thousands more Russian troops to fly into Kyiv at the same time a Russian armored force rolled toward the city from the northwest and northeast The armored thrusts would collapse weeks later as Ukrainian infantry packing Javelin anti-tank missiles ambushed the Russians’ supply convoys By then the Kremlin’s Kyiv gambit already had failed army and border guard prevented a quick takeover at Hostomel shot down during the initial assault on Kyiv turned north and sliced into the Russian helicopter formation rotoring toward the airport Yerko alone shot down two Mi-24s according to the Ukrainian defense ministry Ukrainian pilots and air-defense troops on the ground in total downed at least four of the 34 helicopters in the Hostomel assault The Ukrainian MiGs disrupted the Russians’ air support depriving the hundreds of soldiers at Hostomel of the firepower they needed to defeat the Ukrainian border guards and territorial troops holding much of the airport Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-24 bombers flew in at low level and dropped sticks of unguided bombs on the hapless Russian attackers The Ukrainian defenders held on around Hostomel until special operations forces and heavier active army formations arrived The Russians reinforced their positions at the airport with their own heavier forces that rolled south from Belarus 27 the Ukrainians had massed artillery around the airport—and were systematically demolishing Russian positions The Russians never were able to fly forces into Hostomel after that first day The airport battle dragged on for several more weeks but the likely outcome was obvious after just a few hours It’s not clear exactly when the surviving Russians pulled out of Hostomel the date the Kremlin ordered its battered forces around Kyiv to retreat back to Belarus and southern Russia Hundreds of Russians and Ukrainians died fighting for Hostomel airport After reportedly shooting down two helicopters the morning of Feb he pointed his MiG-29 at the Russian fixed-wing aircraft operating over Kyiv There is possible visual evidence of the former kill But “cowardly” Russian troops on the ground shot him dead as he floated down after the Ukrainian army had finished pushing the Russian army out of northern Ukraine Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Yerko the title “Hero of Ukraine In the first hours of his full-scale invasion Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his most elite troops to get behind enemy lines to an airfield right outside Kyiv that was normally used for cargo and flight testing – Antonov Airport in Hostomel Dozens of helicopters ferried hundreds of Russian airborne soldiers to within striking distance of the capital city’s central district Despite courageous efforts by Ukrainian special operators and the National Guard’s 4th Brigade to defend the grounds Ukrainian forces were forced to pull back to the strategic site’s perimeter This single moment was the point of maximum danger and vulnerability for the survival of the modern Ukrainian state Having taken the airfield in an air assault Russian forces now had the opportunity to land massive cargo planes filled with armored vehicles and thousands of troops right in the suburbs of Kyiv It fell to Col. Oleksandr Vdovychenko, the commander of Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade, to ensure the Russians couldn’t hold the airfield. But Vdovychenko didn’t have much to work with. He told Valerii Zaluzhnyi the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces were en route to firing positions near the airfield Everything else was still being unloaded from train carriages in Kyiv Zaluzhnyi ordered that they open fire on the runway as soon as they could – they needed to disable it immediately “The Battle for Kyiv could have ended with a Russian victory had they taken the airfield," said Nick Reynolds a research fellow at the British think tank RUSI "Russian offensive operations would have been much easier." Ukrainian resistance – and luck – turned the entire tide of the war 36-hour battle pierced the idea of Russian military superiority and a quick military victory and prevented Kyiv from falling into Russian hands It’s why we’re talking about fighting in the east of Ukraine now rather than fighting in the west And it’s arguably why President Volodymyr Zelensky is still alive. It was about 11:00 a.m. when the sound of helicopter rotors began filling the air near Antonov Airport. Still in a state of confusion and denial, both civilians and soldiers near the airfield thought it must be some sort of training exercise. Russian Ka-52 helicopters patrolled the airspace around the airfield, shooting at everything that moved. Nicknamed “The Alligator” for their battlefield capabilities, these attack helicopters made large, looping circles above the airfield as they fired and prepared for additional attack runs. They fired everywhere, shooting unguided rockets at the airfield, office buildings, buses, and a hangar. There was no discernible strategy or effort to avoid hitting civilian targets. It was like a scene out of “Black Hawk Down:” soldiers moving effortlessly in unison as they assaulted an airfield operations building, a thick plume of black smoke billowing in the distance, and attack helicopters racing overhead, releasing a burst of flares. Russian troops dashed off helicopters, moving quickly to take control of the control tower and the adjacent airfield administration building. Only about 200 Ukrainian soldiers had been left to guard the airfield, many of them conscripts who were barred by law from taking part in combat. Most had no experience in battle: a local commander estimated that less than 20 men had seen combat prior to the morning of the full-scale invasion. The Ukrainian soldiers were also lightly armed: they had an ancient, Cold War-era anti-aircraft auto cannon known as the ZU-23-2 but very little ammunition for it; they had some rocket-propelled grenades, but again, only a handful of rounds. For the most part, they used small arms against the incoming helicopters – a terribly unfair fight. Lt. Andrii Kulish, a rare combat-hardened soldier with the 4th Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard who had already spent years fighting Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, was among those troops who tried to delay the Russian advance. “I cannot say that the guys were panicking,” he recalled. “It’s hard to say why. Maybe they didn’t know what to expect.” But one thing that the Ukrainian defenders did have was a Soviet-made Igla, a surface-to-air missile launcher. A National Guard soldier specializing in anti-air operations managed to hit a Ka-52, sending it to the earth and boosting the morale of the Ukrainian defenders. It was among the few bright points of that morning. Hours of fighting commenced, with rounds upon rounds of incoming Russian automatic cannon and rocket fire. Running out of ammunition and about to overrun, the Ukrainian National Guard forces made the decision to withdraw in the early afternoon, getting into a shootout with Russian forces as they did. While, miraculously, none of these Ukrainian soldiers were killed in combat, Russian forces did manage to capture a number of soldiers who were guarding a radar station and Ukrainian border officials working at the airfield. The Russian troops forced the captured border officials and prisoners of war to collect bodies that day. They said that the number of dead Russians totaled 80 soldiers. Perhaps surprisingly, the Russians had been confused when the Ukrainians fought back. “Our guys were interrogated by Russians, and they asked our guys, ‘Why did you shoot back?’” explained Kulish. “So, apparently, they were so brainwashed that they just thought that there would be absolutely no resistance from us.” Ultimately, a video released at the time showed Russian soldiers unfurling two Russian flags on the roof of a building at Antonov Airport by mid-afternoon. Most Ukrainians to this day will recall how impossible the prospect of a full-scale invasion felt before it happened. A common line of thinking was that the Russians were merely pretending to invade in order to create uncertainty among the international business community and cause trouble for the Ukrainian economy. This naiveté extended to the Ukrainian government. Zelensky was downplaying the threat of an invasion until almost the very end – he later said it was because he was also concerned about the economy. Zelensky was hardly alone in his assessment: European officials told Ukraine they didn’t see it as likely and, in particular, it took the Germans so off guard that the chief of their foreign intelligence service was in Ukraine when the full-scale invasion happened, and had to be evacuated by special forces. Even among those who thought a full-scale invasion was likely, there were doubts that it would target Kyiv. But the Ukrainians can’t say they weren’t warned: CIA Director William Burns visited Kyiv less than two months before the invasion, specifically warning that the Russians would try to seize Antonov Airfield in order to create an air bridge into the Kyiv region, swiftly overthrow the government, and capture the capital. When explosions began on the day of the invasion, virtually none of the brigade was present at their base. Ninety percent of the unit had been deployed to the east: infantry battalions, tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft defenses – several thousand troops were sent away from the critical airfield, ignoring American warnings that it would be the site of a Russian attack. The Security Bureau of Ukraine (SBU) said that a subsequent investigation revealed that Antonov, the Ukrainian aircraft company that owned the airfield, prohibited the Ukrainian military from building defensive fortifications at the airport before the full-scale invasion. “We were discussing employee procedures in case there were missile attacks, but the physical capture of the airfield – we were not ready for that,” an Antonov company official said. While the Ukrainians were engaged in wishful thinking, Russian planners were plotting.   “The Russians sought to conduct an air assault to rapidly seize the airport and secure it,” said George Barros, a Russia and Ukraine analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “Meanwhile, elements of the Russian Central and Eastern Military Districts would drive south from Belarus to Kyiv’s western outskirts and link up with the Airborne forces in Hostomel, relieving them.” The plan called for 18 enormous Russian strategic cargo planes, IL-76s, to fly to the newly-secured Antonov Airfield with further reinforcements of infantry, armored vehicles, and artillery. There had also been a well-thought-out infiltration plan in which Russia supporters already in Ukraine would help airborne and special operations troops access the capital, less than an hour’s drive away. The Russian military has a history of airborne assaults, such as when they captured Prishtina Airport in Kosovo in 1999. In 1968, Soviet troops swiftly captured an airport in Prague, allowing large cargo aircraft to arrive and unload tanks to crush the Prague Spring. In both cases – and unlike at Antonov Airfield – they met little to no resistance. And it appears the Russians were counting on that again. The Russians thought it would be a cakewalk; that they would be met with locals bearing bread and salt, a traditional Slavic welcoming gesture. So confident were they that on the first morning of the full-scale invasion, freshly landed Russian airborne troops were walking casually around the outskirts of Antonov Airport, around 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the heart of Kyiv. This careless approach would have terrible consequences for Putin’s plan. Low on ammunition, a convoy of soldiers from the Georgian Legion – a group of foreign fighters supporting Ukraine – were driving around Antonov Airfield, having spent hours shuttling rifle rounds to and from the battlefield. One Georgian Legion soldier, Mamuka Mamulashvili, watched as Russian troops walked along the airfield's perimeter. Lacking bullets to fire his weapon, he stepped on the pedal in his black 2000 BMW 5 Series, turning his vehicle towards the Russian soldiers on the road. "It was very chaotic,” he recalled. “So we just pressed the gas and f****d them up." The Russian soldiers – he said he didn’t count how many – were uninterested in his civilian car up until the moment he ran them over. The bloody story exemplified everything about the haphazard battle in which Russian arrogance met Ukrainian unpreparedness. Russian troops also fired indiscriminately without clear objectives. Around noon, fighting on the airfield set three aircraft on fire. They had been fully fueled and prepared for takeoff at short notice. Civilian emergency workers rushed over to put out the fire, an airfield official said, and were killed. They were among the first alleged war crimes of the full-scale Russian invasion. The result of the Battle of Antonov Airport was, in at least some small part, due to luck and timing. As soon as his artillery rolled into place near Antonov Airport, Vdovychenko ordered his forces to open fire. A local commander pushed back: “Aren’t our people there?” came the response. Even then, there was a sense of bewilderment that the Russians could be in their backyard. After double-checking that the Russians had taken the airfield, artillery fire began around 5 p.m. “It was to show them that we can reach out and hit the airstrip so (that they would feel) afraid to land on it,” Vdovychenko explained. “They still had the physical opportunity to do so, but they were afraid to do it because we were showing them that we had clear fire control over the airfield.” He ordered bridges pre-rigged with explosives to be destroyed to halt any Russian advances. As Ukrainian troops fought to retake the airfield, control of the strategic site switched back and forth. "F**k, at least one more day, and it would be easier, you know, and we would be more prepared,” he recalled. “One more day. Twenty-four hours. And we didn't have 24 hours." Ultimately, the defenders on the airfield, and Vdovychenko’s four artillery pieces, bought that crucial time for other forces around Kyiv to prepare. The artillery opened fire, he said, “just in time.” The wreckage of a Russian military vehicle at the Antonov Airport in Hostomel, Ukraine, on March 3, 2022. (Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)Vdovychenko’s artillery were soon joined by two Ukrainian Su-24 bombers which Kulish saw hit the runway. The blasts damaged the surface of the airstrip, destroyed lighting along the runway, and knocked out navigation equipment. From then on, the airfield was ineffective as a place for the Russian military to land troops and vehicles. Frantic fighting continued for control of the airfield itself, leading to confusion over who controlled the grounds. As night fell, impromptu groups of Ukrainian volunteers, some armed only with rifles and many without body armor, ambushed and were ambushed by Russian troops around the perimeter of the airfield. The Ukrainian government was handing out rifles to whoever would take them at this point, and one senior Ukrainian officer said that in the initial days, “there were random civilians firing at Russians.” “I have goosebumps (recalling this) because, for me, the most important thing wasn't even the technical aspects of a single battle… It was just this spirit that everyone was together… everyone wants to f**k (the Russians) up at that moment,” Vdovychenko said. “For the Battle of Kyiv, it was just us. There were no individuals. It was just us. That was the great thing about it.” Ukrainian staff on the airfield had made a critical decision that would buy time: they opted to block the airstrip with large trucks and vehicles all along the runway, so it would be impossible for anyone – Russian or Ukrainian – to land or take off quickly. The Russian IL-76s cargo planes that were to bring in an additional thousand troops, along with armored vehicles, turned around mid-air and returned to Belarus. Russian forces ultimately took control of Antonov Airport, but their tactical victory was also an extremely costly one. The time spent fighting for control of it allowed Ukrainian forces to build up defenses of the city and for Vdovychenko to bring more armored vehicles and artillery to the fight for the broader Battle for Kyiv. The battle took around 36 hours and effectively ended with the Russians taking control of a disabled airfield, rendered useless by Ukrainian attacks. The occupation of the airfield lasted much longer: until early April. During the period, some of Russia’s best troops were worn down by relentless ambushes and attacks. Long columns of Russian vehicles were stuck in traffic jams, stuck in rough terrain and under constant harassment by Ukrainian anti-tank teams. Russian generals quickly learned that they would not be taking Kyiv in 72 hours. It took another month and a half to learn they wouldn’t be taking Kyiv at all. After the Battle of Antonov Airport, Ukrainian forces retreated south to the other side of the Irpin River to hold the Russians away from the center of the capital. Tatiana Slesareva, a retired math teacher living near the airfield, counted 36 helicopters the morning the battle kicked off. She spoke often with the young Russian soldiers who walked by her home – they were shocked that the Ukrainians were not prepared to accept their “liberation.” One time, she spoke to a Russian commander whose troops had just come back from a bruising defeat. “He started to speak to me in this hostile manner. ‘Do you know what happened? I have a friend left behind there, in a tank. His legs were ripped off!’” she recounted. “What have we done to you? We came to liberate you!” Tatiana stood her ground, telling the commander, “Why did you come here? This is our homeland. Obviously, we’re going to defend it.” The period left her with terrible mental scars. As we talk about the period of occupation, when she was without electricity, gas, or information from the outside world, she lets out these involuntary grunts and moans. This is more than a year later. One day during the occupation period, she felt that something was off: the dogs weren’t barking, and even the chickens in the yard were silent. The normal screech and whine of vehicles and tanks were absent. At first, they were too petrified to do anything – but three days passed, and she told her husband that they should walk around to see what they could find out. “I saw eight people walking towards me,” she said. From a distance, she couldn’t tell who they were – Russian or Ukrainian. “And I asked them, ‘Are you ours?’” she recalls. “And they responded, ‘We are yours.’ And then I started to cry uncontrollably… it was impossible for me to talk.” Ukrainian forces rushed to retake Antonov Airport, abandoned by retreating Russian forces who abandoned the city, concluding the Battle for Kyiv. The Ukrainians had, by sweat and blood, pushed the invading force out. The fact that Russia did not manage to take Kyiv comes down to three events, none of which were coordinated: First, the Antonov Company put trucks out on the runway, preventing massive Russian cargo planes from landing. Second, the unprepared and understrength Ukrainian defenders of the airfield did just enough to repel the initial waves of the Russian assault, preventing the clearing of the runway. Finally, Ukrainian commanders belatedly recognized how vulnerable the airfield was and ordered its destruction through bombardment, greatly reducing its value to the Russian military. The battle had enormous strategic consequences, among them a message to the Russian military and the world that Ukrainians would resist the Russian military ferociously. The combat at Hostomel Airfield also blunted Russian momentum and the advantage of surprise – ultimately leading to Russians failing to encircle Kyiv, decapitate the government, or control the capital city. It wasn’t neat or pretty, but the disorganized defense of the airfield showed Ukrainian will against extraordinary odds. It exemplified the national spirit in those early days of war. And it’s the reason why Ukrainians still control Kyiv today. Ross Pelekh, Alessandra Hay, and Myroslava Tanska-Vikulova contributed to this story. Tim Mak is an American journalist and the founder of the Kyiv-based publication "The Counteroffensive," which focuses on Russia's war against Ukraine. Editing by Timothy Heritage and Hugh Lawson Print HOSTOMEL Ukraine — Days after Russian forces retreated from Kyiv the northern outskirts of the Ukrainian capital are littered with the charred remains of blown-up and abandoned Russian tanks armored personnel carriers and other equipment The debris is a stark testament to an assault that was meant to oust the Ukrainian government but became a humiliating blunder for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s failure to take the capital came down to a series of misjudgments and strategic errors: an emphasis on vulnerable armored columns an attack plan that overstretched supply lines and — most significantly — a clear miscalculation of the Ukrainians’ ability and determination to resist where Putin’s vision of a lightning strike victory ran aground: Antonov Airport A Ukrainian serviceman walks by the destroyed Antonov An-225 (Vadim Ghirda / Associated Press) This sprawling cargo airport and military base 15 miles northwest of downtown Kyiv was supposed to be the principal staging ground and logistics hub for a battle-defining Russian thrust into the heart of the capital The Ukrainian government was supposed to fall and President Volodymyr Zelensky was supposed to be killed, captured or forced into exile. Experts said that Putin probably planned to install a puppet leader. World & Nation Civilians flee eastern Ukraine ahead of a likely Russian offensive, and the Kremlin shuffles its military leadership of the war. The thinking was that a hasty collapse of the central government would trigger deep disarray in Ukrainian units fighting in the east and the south, possibly resulting in a broad surrender. “They needed to get into the middle of Kyiv as quickly as possible and raise the Russian flag over a government building,” said John Spencer, a retired U.S. Army major who now chairs urban war studies at the Madison Policy Forum think tank in New York. “At that point you’ve won the war. Yes, you may start the greatest insurgency in history. But you’ve won the war.” Parts of destroyed aircraft at the Antonov Airport in Hostomel, Ukraine. (Felipe Dana / Associated Press) He said capturing the airport was “critical” to the Russian strategy. Antonov has a long runway, ideal for flying in supplies and troops on heavy transport planes. “You need airfields to bring in force, to bring in tanks, engineers, the necessary armor,” Spencer said. Unlike the United States in its 2003 assault on Baghdad, Russia launched its ground assault immediately, without first pounding military bases, command and control structures and other strategic sites from the air. There was no shock and awe. That decision continues to baffle many. “We all expected that Russia would do several days of airstrikes, precision missile strikes, that kind of thing — ‘softening up,’ so to speak,” said Dmitry Gorenburg, an analyst with CNA, a think tank in Arlington, Va. “But then they launched a ground operation rather than waiting a few days. I’m not sure why they were in that kind of hurry.” For Ukrainian women seeking safety as they give birth ‘We can’t abandon our patients,’ maternity ward supervisor says Russia did expend plenty of air power in its assault on the airfield 24 — the first day of what Putin called his “special operation” — low-flying Russian Mi-8 assault helicopters appeared over the airport and began firing rockets Russian paratroopers ferried in by helicopter were soon redirecting civilian traffic outside the airport gates A satellite photo of the Antonov Airport which was supposed to have been the principal staging ground and logistics hub for a Russian thrust into the Ukrainian capital But those plans failed in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance (Maxar Technologies) By all accounts attempting to grab the air base at the very outset of the war made a lot of sense helping to complement a prospective pincer movement on the capital with nearby motorized columns “The initial idea was that cargo planes with paratroopers and vehicles would land here and it should have been an entry point to Kyiv,” said Denys Monastyrsky Russia “could start pouring in a lot of other troops and start manning checkpoints in the middle of Kyiv,” said Jonathan Eyal associate director of the Royal United Services Institute I think the war may have gone very differently.” announced that Moscow had sent 200 helicopters to take control of the airfield authorities here said fighting at the airport continued for days and Ukrainian forces shot down several helicopters even as Moscow ferried in wave after wave of paratroopers Weeks of fierce combat transformed the airport into a dystopian post-battle debris field The most conspicuous monument to the fighting is the smashed hulk of an Antonov An-225 and was a source of intense national pride A Ukrainian serviceman touches the nose of the Antonov An-225 destroyed in fighting at the Antonov Airport in Ukraine (Vadim Ghirda / Associated Press) The plane looks like it was gouged by a giant can opener its fuselage sheared in a blackened jumble of wires and metal the yellow and blue Ukrainian colors still visible outside the cockpit but its forces remained under constant fire Russia was never able to land large transport aircraft to reinforce besieged forces here and elsewhere in the Kyiv area Rather than thrusting forward to the heart of the capital Russian troops at the air base were stuck fighting for their survival With Zelensky and the Ukrainian government still in power Russian attack columns — lacking anticipated resupply and reinforcement — got bogged down in the capital’s dense northern suburbs Ukrainian troops used Western-provided Javelin portable antitank systems and Turkish-supplied drones to pick off the Russian armor much of which is now rusting away in the suburbs of the capital Moscow somehow didn’t anticipate the effect of the sophisticated equipment that Ukrainian forces had received from the West in recent years Experts said that Russia’s multi-pronged attack across several fronts was clearly undermanned against a well-armed opponent “They tried to do too much,” Gorenburg said Such a notion would undoubtedly draw derision from Putin. The Russian leader has long questioned Ukraine’s status as an independent state, publicly declaring its territory, and people, as an extension of historic Russia. In the view of some, it is Putin’s distorted view of Ukraine that may have led him to misjudge what it would take to win this war — and to disregard the notion that Ukrainians would staunchly resist the Russian onslaught. “I think the bottom line, the essence of the story, is that Mr. Putin believed the nonsense that he was spouting, which is that Ukraine is a fake state hijacked by a small clique — and the moment you put a finger on it the entire thing would collapse like a house of cards, with the Ukrainian president running away,” Eyal said. “Everything else followed this original error.” On the streets of Kyiv, where the retreat was greeted with relief and pride, many agree: Putin underestimated people’s willingness to stand up to Russian force. “I can’t get inside Putin’s head, but I think that, yes, he really expected to take Kyiv in like three days,” said Vitalii Hemych, 28, a restaurant owner. “But our nation is now united. That is the main reason why his plan failed.” Special correspondent Ilona Shubovych in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, contributed to this report. Foreign correspondent Patrick J. McDonnell is the Los Angeles Times Mexico City bureau chief and previously headed Times bureaus in Beirut, Buenos Aires and Baghdad. A native of the Bronx, McDonnell is a graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and was a Nieman fellow at Harvard. California Hollywood Inc. Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map Defense Express has obtained photos of the wreckage of russian VM-V unmanned helicopter from its own sources The wreckages were found at the bottom of the Kyiv reservoir this russian UAV has been there since the end of February 2022 when the russian troops launched a large-scale landing operation near Hostomel The fact that VM-V drones were used during this episode of russia's full-scale invasion has been previously reported by russian resources They claimed that the Defenders of Ukraine shot down 22 of 25 drones of launched it makes sense to tell what is currently known about the use of russian VM-V drone VM-V stands for "airborne target - helicopter simulator." The original purpose of this UAV was to simulate a helicopter-type airborne threat during air defense exercises For the first time russians used their VM-V during joint exercises with Serbia in November 2021 These drones served as targets for Pantsir surface-to-air missile systems these exercises made it possible to test the declared characteristics of VM-V drones The declared flight lenght of VM-V is no less then 2 hours the flight altitude is up to 2.5 kilometers and the maximum distance to control this drone is up to 100 kilometers We can assume that the experience of these exercises could have suggested the idea of using VM-V drones as a tool to overload Ukraine's air defense during the landing operation near Hostomel in February 2022 But it is necessary to record the fact that occupiers used VM-V UAVs the wreckage of one of which was found at the bottom of Kyiv reservoir There is no answer to the question of whether occupiers used VM-V in other episodes of the full-scale war against Ukraine There is no publicly available information of other known cases of VM-Vs usage after February 2022 there were reports about usage of cheap Eniks E95M target drones to weaken Ukrainian air defense two factors could have influenced the rarity of the appearance of VM-Vs in russian war against Ukraine The first is the difficulties of manufacturing new drones of this type under Western sanctions as the engines for the VM-V were manufactured at the facilities of Rotax Austrian company russians have been trying to use their helicopters outside the range of Ukrainian air defense This is why the production and use of new VM-V drones by occupiers could be irrelevant At the same time, it is worth recalling that in November 2023, Moscow boasted of the mass production of Termit attack unmanned helicopters Although there is no publicly available information on how it is going with these unmanned helicopters we should pay attention to this as a possible attempt to revive VM-V drones Earlier Defense Express reported that Latvia would invest €40 million in Ukrainian and domestic drone production. "Now we have repelled [Russian attack] for sure. Hostomel airport is ours [under Ukraine’s control]. The Russian landing party has been destroyed," Oleksiy Arestovych, a non-staff adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, posted on Facebook, Ukrinform reports. Earlier, it was reported that the occupiers took control of the International Airport “State Enterprise Antonov” in Hostomel, less than 10km of Kyiv. Online media entity; Media identifier - R40-01421. © 2015-2025 Ukrinform. All rights reserved. DALLAS - Video footage has surfaced showing an Antonov AN-124-100-150M damaged at Hostomel Airport (GML) amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine The Antonov AN-124 is registered in Ukraine with tail number UR-82009 It is operated by Antonov Airlines (ADB) and its age is 35 years The aircraft's weight is 175000 kg and is powered by four 230,0 kN engines The height of the plane is 20.78 m; its wingspan is 73.3 m What's left of UR-82009 can be seen in a video published by airlive.net at GML after Russian troops left Hostomel in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Along with the AN-225 Myria the AN-124 Ruslan (Lion-like) was damaged during the Battle of Antonov Airport also known as the Battle of Hostomel Airport which was a military engagement that happened at GML during the Kyiv offensive of the Russian invasion UR-82009's last flight departed at 1:55 EET from Burgas Bulgaria (BOJ) bound for GML on January 25 including the AN-124 Ruslan and the AN-225 Myria The An-124 Ruslan is the world's 2nd heaviest gross weight production cargo airplane and heaviest operating cargo aircraft behind the destroyed one-off Antonov An-225 Mriya (an expanded design based on the Ruslan) and the Boeing 747-8 The AN-124 Ruslan made its first flight on December 26 It would be unveiled to the West in 1985 at the Paris Air Show Since the aircraft entered service in 1986 55 AN-124s have been built with about half currently in operation such as the AN-124-100 and the AN-124-100M-150 covering a distance of 20,151 km (10,881 nmi) without refueling the Antonov UR-82008 Antonov An-124-100M-150 has chronicled the story of the commercial aviation industry with his airline history articles that have appeared in AIRWAYS over two decades is a compilation of those articles.Subjects A through C are presented in this first of three volumes Covering topics such as the airlines of Alaska at the time of statehood and Canada's regional airlines of the 1960s the individual histories of such carriers as Allegheny and Continental are also included in Volume One A global review of commercial flight in its 31st yearSubscribe below to our weekly newsletter On a remote plain on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border the morning of Feb hundreds of paratroopers from Russia’s 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade boarded helicopters they thought were bound for a training ground in western Belarus.  senior officers turned to the men to tell them that they were actually at war with Ukraine.  they entered Ukrainian airspace on their way to Hostomel airport near the capital city of Kyiv.  especially considering we took fire in the air,” said Nikita Ponomarev a paratrooper later captured by the Ukrainians.  In the 100 days since the surprise assault on Hostomel Russia’s war on Ukraine has shifted from this style of rapid maneuvering to the grinding artillery duels and the creeping Russian advances now taking place in the east of the country.  the 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade – an elite airborne regiment based in the southern Russian city of Ulyanovsk – has criss-crossed Ukraine as Moscow’s goals were re-formulated in the face of Ukrainian resistance The Moscow Times reconstructed the movements of the 31st Brigade over 100 days of brutal fighting in Ukraine that has killed thousands and displaced millions which previously fought in the Second Chechen War and the 2008 Russo-Georgian conflict and experienced many of the wider logistical and morale problems that have exemplified an often incompetent Russian campaign.  Гостомель, 25 или 26 фев pic.twitter.com/qfYx8nZAu6 The brigade’s paratroopers were among some of the first Russian soldiers to see action in Ukraine when they fastroped onto the tarmac in Hostomel on Feb Ukraine offered a spirited defense of Hostomel despite the scale of the Russian attack ultimately preventing Moscow’s forces from capturing the airfield.  A deep thrust behind enemy lines is typical of airborne forces in the early days of a war “They’re used to seize air fields and really important terrain features and targets,” Lee told The Moscow Times.  Russia would likely have used Hostomel’s long runway to fly in additional units and supplies on huge Il-76 transport aircraft.  But it turned out to be a bad miscalculation.  While the threat of Ukrainian air defense systems prevented Russian transport aircraft from flying into Hostomel, Russian ground forces dug in around the airfield and waited for reinforcements that they thought would be brought overland from Belarus.  A report by CNN on the first day of the invasion appeared to show 31st units carrying boxes of ammunition and sporting white arm bands fortifying the airport’s perimeter.  But much of what we know about the dynamics of the Russian attack on Hostomel comes from an interview with captured 31st Brigade paratrooper Ponomarev who was subsequently interviewed by a prominent Ukrainian blogger who posts videos with Russian prisoners.  Extra equipment and reinforcements were supposed to arrive within 24 hours it was still only us,” he said.  Even as the airport remained unsecured, Russian tanks and armored vehicles flooded into northern Ukraine, heading for Kyiv. In a dramatic address on Feb. 25, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky warned Russia would soon “attempt to storm the capital.”  There was an ominous feeling in the air at Hostomel the next morning, Ponomarev recalled. Suddenly, Ukrainian artillery slammed into the buildings killing dozens of soldiers and destroying large amounts of equipment “There was nothing left — not even a turret,” Ponomarev said “Almost nobody survived that day.” Russia has been reticent about releasing official casualty figures making it impossible to know how many men from the 31st Brigade died in the fighting at Hostomel airport.  Ponomarev estimated at least 60 soldiers were killed.  A total of 34 paratroopers from the 31st Brigade died between Feb. 25 and March 7, according to a report Wednesday by independent media outlet Mediazona.  Russian commanders decided to withdraw from the airfield Video footage reportedly from Feb. 27 shows Russian units piling into trucks in an apparent evacuation.  Stationed in the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk since 1993 the 31st is one of the Russian military’s few elite task forces According to estimates about Russian military unit strength by analyst Lee, the 31st likely committed about 2,000 men to the fighting in Ukraine.   the 31st was quickly thrown into the Russian ground offensive attempting an encirclement of Kyiv in early March.  It was among units deployed to seize the nearby town of Hostomel according to the Institute for the Study of War “Russia’s elite forces suffered heavy losses,” said Nick Reynolds a military analyst at the London-based RUSI think tank of the subsequent urban warfare as Ukraine desperately tried to halt the Russian advance.  As many as 50 paratroopers from the 31st were killed in Hostomel, according to Ukrainian intelligence. Photos showed the bodies of 31st soldiers strewn across pavements and in trenches The 31st Brigade’s losses in the fighting in Hostomel reportedly included senior officers Colonel Sergei Karasev and Major Alexei Osokin.  Osokin was “one of the best,” said Radik Zalalov a soldier with the 31st being treated for wounds in a Belarusian hospital in an exchange with The Moscow Times on social media.   Officially, Russia has reported 1,351 deaths of its soldiers in Ukraine, less than half the total reported by independent media outlets citing open source data. According to military analyst Michael Kofman at least 10,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine.  Of these military losses, about 19% were from paratrooper units, reported the BBC.  Using local media reports and interviews with relatives of the deceased The Moscow Times has identified at least 38 members of the 31st who have died in Ukraine although the real figure is likely to be significantly higher.  Hundreds of Russian vehicles and soldiers evacuating Hostomel airport as Ukrainian artillery units start to target the airfield reportedly on February 27th. This raises questions on who/how Antonov An-225 Mriya was destroyed as the aircraft is clearly seen intact in the video. pic.twitter.com/rIwytnOkMb After the Ukrainians successfully blocked the Russian advance on Kyiv in March the Kremlin opted for a tactical withdrawal and Russian troops – including the 31st – left northern Ukraine on April 1.  The retreat allowed Russia to switch its focus to eastern Ukraine where it has since sought to encircle Ukrainian-held areas of the Donbas region by advancing north from separatist-held Donetsk and south from the northeastern Ukrainian city of Izyum Some of the 31st Brigade were redeployed around Izyum according to a friend of one soldier in the brigade.   The remains of the 31st’s two battalion tactical groups fielded in the fighting around Kyiv were likely amalgamated into one BTG in the east Details about the movements of the 31st in the third month of the war are harder to establish but the friend of the 31st Brigade soldier said parts of the 31st were involved in the Russian offensive on the strategic city of Severodonetsk in late May Over 80% of Severodonetsk is now under Russian control, Luhansk governor Sergei Haidai said this week as the city appeared on the verge of falling.   In line with other reports from the frontline the 31st apparently suffered from low morale and inadequate supplies of food and equipment after it was redeployed to eastern Ukraine toilet facilities or electricity in the camp They [the troops] had to chip in for a gas generator,” Denis Tokarev an ex-soldier from the 31st who remains in touch with soldiers in Ukraine “Residents of the [neighboring Russian] Belgorod region brought them food Notably, the boxing federation in Ulyanovsk has been appealing to locals to donate supplies to send to the 31st. One of the federation’s social media posts in April promised that the next batch of aid for the troops “will include equipment.” According to the Ukrainian military 25 soldiers of the 31st even refused to redeploy to eastern Ukraine The Moscow Times was unable to verify this claim.  stacked high with roses and carnations.  While opinion polls suggest support for Putin’s war in Ukraine remains high among Russians the deaths of the young soldiers from the 31st has caused anguish – and some questioning – among their friends and relatives.  Under a post about the recent death of Captain Adam Khamkhoev from the 31st one user wrote: “Why are Buryats Russians from the hinterland dying in Ukraine It turns out the ordinary people go to the slaughter and the rich — to coffee houses.” And when the death of Corporal Artyom Fedorov was reported last week whose nephew died fighting for the 31st in Ukraine left a comment on social media site VK to pay her respects to the young man.  “Another from the 31st,” Burmistrova wrote between rows of crying emojis ”Are there even any left there?” Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent." These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help please support us monthly starting from just $2 and every contribution makes a significant impact independent journalism in the face of repression The fast-food chain KFC has opened its 60th restaurant in Ukraine, specifically in Hostomel, Kyiv region, as reported by the network's press service The KFC Drive restaurant began operations in the restored shopping center located at 1 Hostomelska Street has been present in the Ukrainian market since 2013 the network is developed by three franchise operators: "Global Restaurant Group - Ukraine," "Testi Food," and "DTS-Kharkiv," with offices located in Kyiv Brands is the largest restaurant company in the world by the number of establishments owning over 55,000 restaurants in more than 155 countries The company's three restaurant brands—KFC and Taco Bell—are global leaders in the quick-service restaurant segments specializing in chicken dishes Which language would you like to use this site in Russian military forces have extrajudicially executed civilians in Ukraine in apparent war crimes Amnesty International said today as it published new testimony following on-the-ground research Amnesty International’s Crisis Response investigators interviewed more than 20 people from villages and towns close to Kyiv several of whom had witnessed or had direct knowledge of horrifying violence committed by Russian forces They repeatedly told of deliberate killings and widespread intimidation by Russian forces against unarmed civilians across the Kyiv region Testimonies shows that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality we have gathered evidence that Russian forces have committed extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings which must be investigated as likely war crimes,” said Agnès Callamard Secretary General of Amnesty International “Testimonies shows that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality “The intentional killing of civilians is a human rights violation and a war crime These deaths must be thoroughly investigated said Russian forces entered her village on 7 or 8 March 10-year-old daughter and mother-in-law – heard shooting through their downstairs windows She and her husband shouted that they were civilians two Russian soldiers pushed them and their daughter into a boiler room She told Amnesty International: “They forced us in and slammed the door they asked my husband if he had cigarettes ‘Finish him,’ and they shot him in the head but I put his hand on my knee and squeezed it A neighbour witnessed Russian forces breaking into the woman’s house that night and confirmed he had seen her husband’s body slumped in the corner of the boiler room The woman and her child escaped from Bohdanivka later that day was at home in the village of Vorzel with her parents when several tanks displaying the letter ‘Z’ – which Russian forces have used to mark their vehicles during the invasion of Ukraine – were driven down their street Her mother Nataliya and father Valeryi left the cellar where they were hiding to go into the street after telling Katerina to stay where she was She told Amnesty International: “Once the tanks had passed by I jumped over the fence to the neighbour’s house I looked over the fence and saw my mother lying on her back on one side of the road and my father was face down on the other side of the street my mother had a smaller hole in her chest.” Kateryna said that her parents were dressed in civilian clothing and unarmed a volunteer involved in evacuations from areas around Kyiv helped Kateryna leave Vorzel The volunteer told Amnesty International he had seen the bodies of Kateryna’s parents lying in the street near her house In a video verified by Amnesty International the pair can be seen writing Kateryna’s parents’ names and dates of death on a piece of cardboard During the first days of Russian occupation of the city of Hostomel Taras Kuzmak was driving around delivering food and medication to bomb shelters where civilians were gathering when their car came under gunfire from the direction of a large residential complex that had been seized by Russian forces while Yuryi Prylypko fell to the ground injured after being shot Taras Kuzmak and the other surviving man hid behind an excavator for hours as shooting continued He told Amnesty International: “They noticed us and immediately opened fire not to make any moves… They shot at us again at around 3pm There is a kind of breathing somebody has only right before they die I think they must have been using something high-calibre.” Two other Hostomel residents told Amnesty International they had seen Yuryi Prylypko’s body near a church when an impromptu funeral was held for him several days later Other residents confirmed that in the days leading up to his death Yuryi Prylypko had been delivering food and medication around the city Amnesty International collected three additional accounts of unlawful killings of civilians including the account of a survivor of rape whose husband was extrajudicially executed A woman in a village east of Kyiv told Amnesty International that two Russian soldiers had entered her house then repeatedly raped her at gunpoint while her young son hid in a boiler room nearby The woman was able to escape from the village to Ukrainian-controlled territory with her son told Amnesty International that she saw the body of a woman who had lived on her street lying outside her house The woman’s mother told Milena that her daughter was shot in the initial days of the invasion while looking over her fence at a Russian military vehicle Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab independently verified video footage that confirmed the location of the shallow grave in which she was buried Volodymyr Zakhliupanyy and his wife fled the city of Hostomel in the first few days of the invasion and Serhiy described the heavy fighting in the city Friends who remained in the city then tried to find Serhiy and went to the building where he had been sheltering in the basement Volodymyr told Amnesty International: “When they asked the neighbours they said that on 13 March my son was taken away [from the basement] by the Russians they found him behind the garages of the same building… they said he had been shot in the head.” Interviewees told Amnesty International they had lost access to electricity There was little mobile phone connectivity and some interviewees said Russian soldiers had confiscated or destroyed mobile phones whenever they saw residents carrying them or threatened them with violence for having a phone Threats of violence and intimidation were also widespread One man in Hostomel said that he saw an entire dormitory of people who were sheltering from shelling who were forced to go outside where Russian military officers immediately fired gunshots over their heads Two men from Bucha also said snipers regularly shot at them when they went to salvage food from a destroyed grocery store near their home “As these horrendous accounts of life under Russian occupation continue to emerge the victims in Ukraine must know that the international community is determined to secure accountability for their suffering,” said Agnès Callamard and inhumane treatment of prisoners of war are human rights violations and war crimes Those who directly commit war crimes should be held criminally responsible for them Under the doctrine of command responsibility hierarchal superiors – including commanders and civilian leaders such as ministers and heads of state – who knew or had reason to know about war crimes committed by their forces but did not attempt to stop them or punish those responsible should also be held criminally responsible Amnesty International is documenting violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed in the war in Ukraine. All of Amnesty International’s outputs published to date – including news updates, briefings and investigations – can be found here people in Ukraine are facing a catastrophic human rights crisis Take action to demand that the Russian authorities stop this act of aggression and protect civilians now If you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you As one came under attack by a surface-to-air missile The air assault by Russia—perhaps one of the largest of recent decades—was a bold and brazen attempt to seize a strategic airport near Ukraine’s capital George Simion will face Nicusor Dan, a mainstream candidate, in a run-off There are five luxuries it can no longer feasibly afford Friedrich Merz’s career is one of unforced errors and puzzling missteps. But he is serious about Europe Both Donald Trump and Ukraine’s diplomats will consider it a success The relevant statement was made by Advisor to Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Vadym Denysenko The thing is that they are fully controlled by Russians at the moment,” Denysenko told Russian invaders are preventing food deliveries to Kherson Whenever entrepreneurs attempt to get to the city Sumy Region and Kherson Region,” Denysenko said at the moment the Russian side refuses to organize humanitarian corridors to let civilians leave the captured settlements “We are involving international organizations and presidents of other countries to resolve this humanitarian issue this is a personal instruction from Vladimir Putin to now allow for any humanitarian corridors yet,” Denysenko noted Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a full-scale invasion of Ukraine The Russian military are shelling and destroying the key infrastructure facilities launching missile strikes on residential districts in Ukrainian cities and villages Vlad Cherniavskyi was recovering from surgery at his family's home when the Russians invaded: Here he recounts what he and his relatives saw in the occupation and how they fled Ukrainian and Russian forces have been fighting for hours over a critical airfield on the outskirts of Kyiv Russian forces attacked and seized the Hostomel (Gostomel) airfield, a cargo airport near Kyiv that is also known as Antonov Airport, early Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse Ukraine's leadership vowed to take it back "The enemy paratroopers in Hostomel have been blocked and troops have received an order to destroy them," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address Hostomel is in the northwestern suburbs of Kyiv which could make it critical to the defense of the Ukrainian capital Control of the strategic airport would allow Russia to quickly reinforce its fight with troops and supplies.  a CNN reporter who has been on the ground outside Kyiv reported earlier Thursday that Russian airborne troops were engaged in a firefight with Ukrainian troops at the airfield "It shows us now for the first time just how close Russian forces have got towards the center of the Ukrainian capital," the reporter said.  Helicopters were seen flying low over the airfield and witnesses nearby told AFP they saw fighter jets fire missiles at Ukrainian troops as the fighting began It lasted three hours," one local resident told AFP "Then three more jets flew in and they started shooting again." While it was reported earlier Thursday that the Russian troops who were identified by orange and black bands on the arm of their uniforms Ukraine may have since been able to retake the airfield An advisor to the Ukrainian president, after initially declaring prematurely that Ukraine had repelled the Russians, said on Facebook "Russian paratroopers have been destroyed." The exact status of the airfield could not be independently confirmed the modus operandi has become random torture and the execution of civilians unaccountable violence against civilians in clear evidence of war crimes in front of a gated suburban home with a luxury Lexus sedan and well-tended garden A neighbour had informed the police in the recently liberated Kyiv suburb of Hostomel and the local recon unit arrived to clear the bodies On his body lay a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter The executioners had apparently marked the completion of their task with a smoke.  obscured by the lower limbs of a cedar tree his hands tied with a long length of external telephone wire As at so many Ukrainian homes in Russian held regions the two-storey dwelling had been ransacked the contents thoroughly looted and wrecked a businessman who had joined the police force at the start of the war zipped up and carried to a white Transit van where they were piled with ten other bodies found so far that day There were no official photographs or video recording of the scene said that his group had so far found more than 40 bodies of Ukrainian civilians.  we think even some corpses were raped,” he said They are torturing them just because they are Ukrainians.” Hostomel may have been the most important town in the fight for Ukraine Russia’s blitzkrieg strategy focused on taking the town and its airport Russian forces would have piled in at speed to overwhelm the capital and overthrow the government and held off the Russians long enough to make the facility and aircraft there unusable and reinforce the capital before ceding the strip and the town.  someone else is being is killed and raped right now wherever Russians are in control.” Bodies may not have been as apparent or numerous here as at nearby Bucha where more than 320 corpses have been found littered across streets and yards.  leaving several dozen – according to estimates of local citizens – buried for weeks under the rubble It will be some time still before these sites can be excavated two more corpses towards the growing total in still another town confirm that the modus operandi of the occupying forces is the same: random torture and executions of civilians “They took me away for execution four times A former soldier who served in the Donbas in 2014 he had buried his military records – a precaution made marginally less necessary when his entire house was shelled and destroyed He said that several of his friends who served with him in the military went missing during the occupation and he had not heard any information about them since As the fighting shifts to the east and the south the focus will be on shelling and fighting while corpses are still being found around the capital it must be all-but certain that more torture and new executions are taking place in Russian-occupied areas.  a senior Ukrainian banker and former vice president at JP Morgan in New York It is only after territories are freed of Russian control that the bodies will be found Each conflict has its iconic images of suffering and death; Bosnia with its mass graves The image of Ukraine is now minted: along with the Mariupol theatre bound and executed – lying in the street or even in their own suburban front yard Driving from the north back to the capital through a woodland and agricultural area pulled over by the side of the road with bicycles They flagged down a Ukrainian police car ahead of us.   “We saw this person shot by Russians a week ago,” said the woman and expected someone to come take him away.  She said that down the road and into the woods three humanitarian aid volunteers in a car had been fired on by Russians The police said they would pass the information to the appropriate team No doubt a white Transit van will be out tomorrow Journalists need training and support to properly cover war crimes trials Activists warn that vulnerable domestic workers risk abuse often returning with serious health conditions sacrifice and luck secured a vital early win in the south-eastern campaign Some women face Adana's male-dominated traffic chaos for a living Recent murder highlights widespread discrimination and violence against LGBTI people Open source intelligence (OSINT) can provide facts – but impatient Tel +44 (0)20 7831 1030 Tel +1 202 393 5641 IWPR is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom (charity reg no: 2744185); in the United States as a not-for-profit organisation with tax-exempt status under IRS section 501(c)(3); and as a charitable foundation in The Netherlands The opinions expressed on iwpr.net are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting Site design by IWPR. Developed by AG Prime arguing that only President Donald Trump has real leverage over Russian President Vladimir Putin The number includes 1,430 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day "To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement" by Benjamin Nathans which covers dissent in the Soviet Union and Russia today Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on May 5 announced they had facilitated Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash's escape from Russia to France after she fled house arrest on April 21  (Updated:  May 6, 2025 6:22 am)Ukraine's drones target Moscow second night in a row, Russian official claims. Debris from one of the drones reportedly fell on the Kashirskoye Highway The reported attack comes just days before Russia's Victory Day parade and three-day "truce." A Russian drone attack on Odesa Oblast on May 5 killed one and caused damage to local infrastructure "We appreciate that Germany plays a pivotal role in supporting Ukraine throughout the years of war Ukraine is also grateful for your personal commitment," President Volodymyr Zelensky said MPs will be able to ask questions and learn more about the details of the agreement in meetings with Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko May 6-7 MP Serhii Sobolev told the news outlet Suspilne The ratification vote is scheduled for May 8 Attacks against the border villages of Bilopillia and Vorozhba damaged civilian infrastructure and triggered emergency evacuations the regional military administration reported "I look forward to working with President Erdogan on getting the ridiculous war between Russia and Ukraine ended — now!" U.S Putin's Victory Day truce "doesn't sound like much if you know where we started from," Trump told reporters at the White House on May 5 Far-right Euroskeptic candidate George Simion head of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan placed second with 20.99% of the vote and the candidate from the ruling coalition "It requires the continuation of contacts between Moscow and Washington which have been launched and are now ongoing," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said set to operate within the Council of Europe will focus on Russia's political and military leaders Security Service said that Bychkov and Netosov will stand trial for "obstructing the activities of the Armed Forces." According to SBU statement, the Mriya aircraft was in good technical condition the (Antonov) officials ordered to block access for the Ukrainian soldiers on the territory," SBU reported the Antonov workers refused to let the National Guard on the territory of the Hostomel airport to get prepared for its potential defense In April 2023, Bychkov and Netosov, were charged with negligence leading to the destruction of the world's largest cargo aircraft, AN-225 Mriya the Antonov officials did not evacuate the Mriya despite the warnings of state authorities and knowledge that insurance coverage is running out The negligence of the Antonov workers caused more than Hr 8.4 billion ($227.8 million) in damage to the Ukrainian state Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was supposed to bring the existence of a 40-million European nation to an end Ukrainian cities were set alight in blazes of burning airfields and the scattering of artillery impacts Endless armored convoys broke into highways and helicopters roared over the woods of north Ukraine more towns and cities across the country were being captured by advancing Russian armies Russian dictator Vladimir Putin declared the end of Ukraine as it was President Joe Biden pays a surprise visit to Kyiv – a triumphant nod at Russia’s failed plans to conquer the Ukrainian capital How did something that was supposed to be Putin’s several-day-long “special military operation” turn into a staggering defeat and a subsequent grinding war that the Kremlin’s propaganda now calls Russia’s “fight for survival” Several key factors ensured Russia’s failure The first was its failure to destroy Ukraine’s military cohesion social stability and system of governance in the decisive opening days of the invasion Russia completely failed to assess Ukraine as a nation; to understand its morale and its military’s readiness to fight This understanding would be critical to execute the beheading strike needed for victory Russia did not have enough forces when it invaded Ukraine And these insufficient forces were dispersed into several axes of attack all along the Ukrainian border failure to maintain an adequate line of supply to Russia’s inadequate forces dealt the deathblow to its hopes of reaching the capital Russia could choose the date and time of invasion It could postpone the attack until the circumstances were the most favorable Ukraine was very limited in its capacity to mobilize its forces and go on military footing while avoiding a social and economic collapse due to the war threat the Ukrainian military was prepared and survived as a centralized system fully in control of itself Ukraine saved its air force and air defense even as the torrent of Russian missiles rained down on Ukraine’s defense infrastructure Both the military and civilians resisted being demoralized and did not falter When large Russian forces penetrated the state border from all directions could not count on covering the country’s entire giant border So it opted to switch tactics — letting Russian forces go deep into its home turf then hitting them where Russian convoys were the most vulnerable: woods The Ukrainian military made good use of Russia’s startling overconfidence Russia never expected to fight a full-scale war against a large and motivated adversary in hostile territory the Kremlin expected the Ukraine war to resemble a mixture between the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and the 1979 attack that had dethroned and killed the president of Afghanistan in Kabul Russia’s bold plan was initially meant to quickly gain a foothold at the Hostomel Airport outside of Kyiv then ensure the arrival of more elite rapid response forces They would follow up with the quick seizure or assassination of Ukraine’s leadership in Kyiv leaving the country in the throes of chaos That’s why it was called a “special military operation.” After the Russian paratroopers and special operations forces were done combined force concentrated along the Ukrainian border was to complete the plan — to overrun and occupy the disorganized nation facing little to no fight from a demoralized Ukrainian military That’s why we now have stories of Russian combat formations having their parade uniforms packed ready for triumphant marches in downtown Kyiv We have stories of Russia’s Rosgvardia militarized police units carrying basically nothing but sticks and shields to beat protesters But the quick jump at Hostomel completely failed due to totally unexpected organized resistance this sudden failure undermined the whole Russian plan from the beginning The giant Russian convoys rushed deep into Ukrainian territory Along highways running through dense woods of northern Ukraine highly-mobile Ukrainian squads armed with advanced anti-tank weapons The large concentrations of Russian military power also became easy targets for the masterful and precise Ukrainian artillery Poor logistics and constant Ukrainian hit-and-run attacks deteriorated the situation Ukrainian formations wiped out Russian fuel trucks headed for the convoys dooming the Russian armored vehicles to run out of fuel and be abandoned Russia lost well over 1,000 tanks and other military vehicles in its failed blitzkrieg in north Ukraine That roughly corresponds to the tank arsenals of Britain Russian forces became bogged down in heavy fighting in the suburbs of Ukrainian cities like Sumy Russia completely failed to penetrate Kyiv’s defenses or even lay siege to the Ukrainian capital Its dismal combined arms advances in northern Ukraine halted by mid-March The writing was on the wall — facing a Ukrainian counter-strike Russia opted to leave the Kyiv area before it was too late by the end of the first month of the full-scale war it made no sense trying to capture Sumy and Chernihiv In the first of what it called “goodwill gestures,” Russia withdrew from north Ukraine by April The first major victory gave Ukraine the most important thing — the Russian blitzkrieg plan was completely derailed and Russia lost a giant bulk of its initial fighting power This can be roughly compared to stupidly losing some $600,000 an instant before one has to pay at least $1 million Ukrainian failures helped Russia quickly seize Kherson and then Berdyansk and Melitopol without much of a fight This paved the way to the tragic destruction of Mariupol Russian advances in the south were stopped by the brutal resistance at Mykolaiv Russia never came to seize Odesa and enter Moldova’s Transnistria With the failure of the blitzkrieg aimed at Kyiv the Kremlin had to do something to get away with what had happened without admitting a general defeat The Kremlin had to turn on the dime and greatly narrow its war goals Russian war propaganda swiftly forgot all about Kyiv It pretended the whole thing was about nothing but Donbas from the very beginning Russia regrouped and concentrated the rest of its combat-capable force in the embattled Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts The Russians revised their tactics and prepared their bottomless artillery power that could devastate everything in front of it Ukraine also has considerable military power in the country’s east It has much more motivated and competent infantry along with heavily fortified positions developed through the eight-year static war in the region which could not match the devastating Russian artillery power and extremely costly fighting for each and every strongpoint Russia pounds Ukrainian cities to dust and the Ukrainian military defends them in close combat until it can’t hold them and withdraws to another line with the capture of what was left of the twin cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk in July Russia was so exhausted that it couldn’t gather a comprehensive offensive capability for more than half a year But the blood of Ukrainian soldiers helped Ukraine complete a full-scale mobilization and call up to 1 million men and women to its ranks it helped buy time and persuade the West into truly believing the Ukrainian cause — and finally providing Ukraine with heavy weapons Amid the Battle of Sievierodonetsk in late spring and early summer Ukraine was running out of artillery and munitions But it managed to quickly switch to Western pieces Ukraine managed to fight on — and avoid an inevitable defeat to Russia in the long run had it been stripped of its heavy weaponry And in many ways thanks to Ukraine’s saturation of Western anti-aircraft weaponry Russia never managed to gain air supremacy over Ukraine like M270 MLRS and M142 HIMARS came to the battlefield just as Russia was too exhausted to go on These weapons wiped out Russian logistics and munition supplies greatly undermining Russia’s greatest advantage in this war — its artillery So it’s no wonder that Ukraine managed to meanwhile build up offensive capability by September and launch a two-pronged strike in a bid to exhaust what’s left of Russian elite forces on the Dnipro’s west bank and retake the only regional capital lost after Feb Ukraine exploited the chaos and Russia’s lack of available manpower delivering a sudden and devastating strike in Kharkiv Oblast in September The startling success of the Kharkiv Operation didn’t just help Ukraine deliver intense pressure from northern Donbas by severing key Russian supply lines running through the cities of Kupyansk and Izium It stripped Russia of any realistic chance to surround and destroy the Ukrainian military grouping in the country’s east But it also made the Kremlin take some of its most extreme domestic measures — such as the so-called “general mobilization” in Russia which hadn’t been seen since 1941 and 1914 just because Russia’s grinding campaign in Ukraine had no hope of success with so little manpower spread across the 2,000-kilometer front line It’s only thanks to the very politically risky mobilization did Russia manage to hold on to what it captured in Ukraine and even finally launch a general offensive in the east — for the first time since the summer of 2022 The new Russian offensive is showing very limited results with advancing Russian convoys devastated by Ukrainian artillery once this new advance culminates and wears down again Ukraine will have to go over the top and counter-attack That’s why Kyiv is so insistent on getting as many Western weapons as possible the Ukrainian counteroffensive force needs to have an armored fist prepared Illia Ponomarenko was a defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent in 2021-2023 He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict’s earliest days he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today's guest reporter at the U.S Google partially updated its map of Ukraine Even though the latest images probably date from March 2022 the scale of destruction in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion is clear The latest map lays bare the aftermath of the historic battles for Kyiv and shows the destroyed iconic cargo plane Mriya at Hostomel Airport It also shows a bridge in Irpin and a dam in Kozarovychi Village that Ukrainian forces had to blow up to stop the Russian offensive on Kyiv last year Satellite cameras have also captured Bakhmut fields peppered with shell holes and people standing in line for humanitarian aid in the doomed port city of Mariupol POLITICO gathered satellite pictures from nine locations in Ukraine to show what they looked like before and after Russia invaded Hostomel Airport is an international cargo airport located near the northwest of Kyiv It is used to be known as the home airport for Mriya a great point of pride to Ukrainians. From here Mriya used to take off on its humanitarian missions Mariupol used to be a lively city of 400,000 people that had it all: heavy industry an international port and a vibrant cultural life Mariupol Drama Theater was one of its centers the Drama Theater became a shelter for Mariupol residents who lost their homes during the Russian bombardment.  Locals thought a sign saying “Children” painted on a sidewalk near the theater would save it from bombing Villages to the northwest of Kyiv have witnessed several decisive battles Even though the Russians could not send more paratroopers by air after they lost the battle for Hostomel airport Ukrainian forces still needed to do anything they could to prevent Russian forces streaming into Kyiv from Belarus To impede the transit of Russian vehicles and forces to the right bank of the Irpin River, the Ukrainian forces blew up the bridge in Demydiv village and the protective dam of the Kyiv Water Reservoir between Kozarovychi and Lyutizh villages The massive rush of floodwater stopped the Russian forces and made it impossible for them to bring their tanks and artillery closer to Kyiv it flooded the local villages and damaged homes the Russians made Kyiv their primary target Kyiv’s once homely suburbs of Irpin and Bucha paid dearly Photos of Irpin residents standing under the destroyed bridge across the Irpin River Ukrainian soldiers had to blow up the only bridge that connected Irpin and Kyiv to block Russians from taking Kyiv Ukraine is now working on rebuilding the bridge Metro Cash and Carry department store on the outskirts of Mariupol once a flourishing Ukrainian port city on the Sea of Azov It was looted during the siege of Mariupol blockaded by Russian forces attacking from the east After the Russians occupied Mariupol in May 2022 they started using Metro’s premises as a point to distribute humanitarian aid to the starving locals Satellite pictures of Starokrymske Cemetery in the village of Stary Krym might be the only visible evidence of the huge number of victims of the Russian siege of Mariupol as kilometers of new graves appeared in a short time after the full-scale invasion and occupation began The first trenches on the territory of the cemetery appeared on March 24 2022 — only days after the village was occupied by the Russian military you can see that they were 60-70 meters long an industrial town in the eastern Donetsk region Russian forces have launched near-suicidal wave attacks and the Kremlin’s forces now control most of the town Even though the latest version of the map doesn’t show the scale of destruction in Bakhmut now the image of fields entirely pock-marked with shell holes reveals the savagery of the battle Russian artillery units started shelling Moshchun heavily.  and some international fighters were outnumbered by Russia’s elite troops who managed to cross the Irpin River near Moshchun Dozens of Russian paratroopers from the elite Kostroma fought Ukrainian forces in heavy street fights in Moshchun New groups of enemy soldiers were approaching across pontoon bridges The second blast on the dam in Kozarovychi released even more water and the river finally cut the Russians in Moshchun off from the rest of their comrades giving the Ukrainians an opportunity to overpower their adversaries '+n.escapeExpression("function"==typeof(o=null!=(o=r(e,"eyebrowText")||(null!=l?r(l,"eyebrowText"):l))?o:n.hooks.helperMissing)?o.call(null!=l?l:n.nullContext||{},{name:"eyebrowText",hash:{},data:t,loc:{start:{line:28,column:63},end:{line:28,column:78}}}):o)+" \n 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"\/liveblog_entry\/russia-claims-to-take-control-of-hostomel-airport-just-outside-kyiv\/?__cf_chl_rt_tk=Pg.ZmaG748xDsaV6pkCJ.gfmHGK8DPJ9JA7G9OfEKX0-1746512702-1.0.1.1-Ror7jJFHien9lnZDEmSMq332u0J2KmvvXVjbtC4kBhY" + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash);cpo.onload = function() {history.replaceState(null ogU);}}document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(cpo);}()); The Ukrainian military destroyed a Kadyrov forces unit near Hostomel "A unit of Kadyrov forces near Hostomel was destroyed Commander of the 141st Regiment of the Chechen unit of the Russian Guard was killed together with the group," the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine posted on Telegram The destruction delayed as the enemy were insidiously hiding behind civilian infrastructure Kadyrov forces units were also spotted in Kharkiv direction such vehicles are on their way from Sumy to Kyiv Ramzan Kadyrov is the leader of Russia's Chechnya region and an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin Russian president Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine on February 24 and launched a large-scale invasion Russian troops have been shelling and destroying key infrastructure for four days already while missiles have been hitting residential buildings Martial law was imposed in Ukraine and general mobilization was announced General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine The relevant statement was made by the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Telegram Russian invaders decided to make pontoon structures Our cossacks have burned them a little bit Death to the enemies!” the report states A reminder that the Ukrainian military have killed about 13,000 Russian invaders over 18 days since Russia started a war against Ukraine Russia has already lost more troops than it did during two Chechen wars Three commanders and two subordinates accused of firing at convoy fleeing Hostomel on the second day of the full-scale invasion This week’s overview of key events and links to essential reading A case in which Russian soldiers allegedly shot at ten civilian cars killing five people and injuring several more is to be considered by the Irpin city court of the Kyiv region the five soldiers are accused of firing on a convoy of cars carrying civilians fleeing from the town of Hostomel on February 25,2022 Hostomel is located 30 kilometres from Kyiv city and is the location of the strategically important Antonov international airport Russian troops sought to gain control over the towns of Hostomel in order to surround the capital from the west.  The battle for control of the airport in Hostomel began on February 24 They refused to organise so-called green corridors to allow people to leave the captured towns The Kyiv region was under occupation until early April.  Ukrainian police investigators announced in absentia that they suspected five Russian soldiers of shooting civilians the 52-year-old commander of the special purpose unit of the Rosguardia (Russian Guard) in the Krasnoyarsk territory his deputy 46-year-old Sergey Veikkolainen as well as Oleg Potopalskiy Kazeichev and Veikkolainen are natives of the Krasnoyarsk region of the Russian Federation Malakhaev from Saratov and Potopalskiy from the city of Rostov-on-Don The investigation found that on February 25 2022,  having failed to complete the combat task of capturing Kyiv soldiers of the consolidated detachment of the Russian Guard units as well as the mobile special purpose detachment in the Krasnoyarsk territory retreated and took up positions in Hostomel Russian soldiers were in combat positions in the area of Shevchenko and Sviato-Pokrovska streets in the centre of Hostomel eight cars carrying civilians were shot at on Shevchenko street and two more on Sviato-Pokrovska street.    Prosecutors believe that the order for the indiscriminate attacks was given by Kazeichev in coordination with Veikkolainen and Potopalskiy and was carried out by Gadalov and Malakhaev along with other unidentified Russian military personnel The five civilians who were shot were the driver of a BMW a 52-year-old Russian citizen of the Russian Federation and a boy the 22-year-old driver and female passenger of a Chevrolet Aveo Among six people injured was the 44-year-old driver of a Skoda Fabia According to information from the prosecutor's office the investigation identified 41 witnesses and ordered 57 examinations as well as nine investigative experiments Law enforcement officers received video from cameras located near the crime scene as well as a recording of an eyewitness to the events.  The investigation continues to identify other Russian soldiers involved in the shooting of civilians in Hostomel as Russian Guard units from the Russian cities of Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk of the Kemerovo region were also stationed in the area Malakhaev and Potopalskyi was separated into a separate criminal proceeding the investigation of which took the investigators half a year The court also chose preventive measures for them in the form of detention without determining the amount of bail which will be implemented if they are detained the Shevchenkivskyi district court of Kyiv city granted permission to carry out a special pre-trial investigation the suspects are in the territory of the Russian Federation.  it was sent to the Irpin city court of the Kyiv region This case will be considered by a panel of judges as the court proceedings must be heard by three judges.  and Potopalskiy - ndicted for violation of the laws and customs of war combined with intentional murder by a group of persons (Part 2 of Article 28 Part 2 of Article 438 of the criminal code of Ukraine) -face ten to 11 years of imprisonment or life if convicted The accused were provided with the right to defence and lawyers from Ukrainian Centre for Free Legal Aid were appointed the court received the indictment and scheduled a preliminary hearing for June 26 The court will be able to close it and proceed with the substantive consideration of the case only after the procedure of summoning the Russian military to court and granting permission for special court proceedings in the absence of the accused Here's some advice for nations who don't want Russian troops as uninvited guests: Guard your airport That's the recommendation from two American defense experts who point to a pattern in Russian operations over the last 50 years: when the Kremlin wants to occupy another nation Moscow sent commandos and paratroopers to seize airports in Prague in 1968 to facilitate an advance by ground troops invading across the border "An appreciation of this playbook is key for states who might find themselves in the crosshairs of future Russian aggression," the essay warned The strategy can work with blistering speed as elite assault troops seize the airport to create an aerial beachhead Air transports can then fly in reinforcements to expand the airhead while waiting to link up with armored columns pouring across the border Russian operations follow a typical sequence "Positioning conventional forces on the borders of the targeted country to amplify political pressure and organize for invasion; infiltrating special operations (Spetsnaz) units to prepare and spearhead the incursion; seizing a strategic airport through airborne units; and airlanding additional assault troops to secure the battlespace and decapitate the national government in conjunction with the already inserted special operations units." The airport invasion force typically comprises a "special forces detachment to achieve surprise followed with a battalion-sized element to pave the way for at least a brigade to follow on," Stringer A Russian brigade typically numbers about 4,000 paratroops The strategy doesn't always work. The 2022 Kyiv air assault was a fiasco: air strikes failed to suppress Ukrainian air defenses that shot down numerous helicopters close air support for the airhead was lacking and Ukrainian forces quickly counterattacked the 300 beleaguered paratroopers Given that seizing airports has worked for Russia in the past it's reasonable to assume the Kremlin will use similar methods against other potential targets But that's easier said than done for small nations with small militaries "Russia may have its hands full in Ukraine right now but adequately preparing for Russia's invasion playbook takes time," the essay said combined with Russia's pattern of invading a country and deposing its leadership makes it critical for vulnerable countries to take measures to counter the threat given that both have Russian troops already in their country and are faced with a range of resource constraints." The authors suggest several solutions that aren't ruinously expensive The first is to deploy special military units to defend key airports "The Ukrainians left elements of the 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade of the National Guard at the Antonov Airport despite the overwhelming need for Ukrainian troops to confront the Russian invasion at its borders," the essay noted "This unit of around three hundred troops succeeded in frustrating the Russian forces' seizure of the airport and rendered the airstrip unusable foiling subsequent Russian efforts to land forces and seize the capital." Stringer points to a special airport defense regiment that Switzerland stationed at Zurich Airport during the Cold War "It was a brigade-sized element of approximately 3,000 personnel It consisted of four operational battalions armed with machine guns armored personnel carriers with 20-mm cannon Airport vehicles could be used to block the runway I think this model would be both pragmatic and affordable for a small state today." Even though Russia may dwarf a small state in military power that doesn't guarantee a successful airport seizure Lightly armed airborne troops have historically been vulnerable to anti-aircraft defenses as they fly in and counterattacks by the defender before they can organize a ground position the Russians are vulnerable," Stringer said "This vulnerability increases if they do not have air superiority over the airfield." If Russian troops do manage to capture an airport the defender's best option is "immediate counterattack to dislodge the assaulting force and block the runway in order to prevent reinforcement and expansion of the airhead," Stringer said The US and Europe can also assist vulnerable nations in defending their airports "The United States military has several units dedicated to seizing or securing airstrips particularly within the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment and Air Force special operations forces," the essay said "These units could provide valuable training on how to plan for and disrupt a Russian assault on critical airports Similar capabilities exist within European special operations and conventional forces including countries with total defense plans at-risk states and the countries that advise and support them should aim to increase the costs for Russia to execute its invasion playbook," the essay concluded "Understanding and delineating the sequence of events Russia has historically used to initiate a coup and devising countermeasures to thwart these actions may prove critical in defending against the next Russian invasion."