Airport Battle: The Ukraine Strikes Back

HOSTOMEL, UKRAINE — In part one of this video series we looked at how — on the first day of the Russian invasion — Hostomel airport near Kyiv was hit at 7 a.m. by a Russian cruise missile. A few hours later, dozens of Russian helicopter gunships started engaging the airport’s defenders for hours. Here’s what happened next. The Wall Street Journal reports that, after nearly three hours of strafing Hostomel airport on the first day of the invasion, Russian helicopters started to disgorge elite Russian soldiers on the most remote parts of the airport’s open fields. These troops could later be seen on helmet cam as they carefully engaged the remaining resistance and moved toward the airport’s built-up area. Here, they set up roadblocks and anti-tank missiles to stop Ukrainian counter attacks. As the Russians dug in, Ukrainian intelligence realized that Moscow planned to send 18 transport aircraft into Ukraine from Belarus. That night, a unit of 48 Ukrainian paratroopers jumped into three helicopters and sped toward Hostomel. Their mission was to get close enough to the landing strip to destroy at least the first Russian transport aircraft, so no others would dare to land. The small Ukrainian force dismounted in a field west of the airport and approached it on foot, under cover of darkness. Suddenly, a Russian surveillance drone buzzed over them, and they realized that they had been spotted. Tomorrow we’ll show you part three of the battle of Hostomel airport. Interestingly, combat footage of the first day of the battle shows many parts of the battle unfolding. One video shows a Russian Kamov Ka-52 attack helicopter conducting many strafing runs before it is damaged by Ukrainian fire and has to make an emergency landing in one of the fields surrounding the airstrip. In another video, Ukraine’s famous Antonov An-225 cargo plane can be seen burning to the ground in its open hangar. The An-225 was the world’s largest functional cargo plane, and only one was ever built. It is not certain if it was hit by Russian fire, or if the Ukrainians destroyed it to prevent the Russians from using it. There are also quite a few videos showing hundreds of Russian attack and troop-carrying helicopters converging on Hostomel from all sides. Most of these videos were taken by Ukrainian civilians using their phone cameras to get footage of the attack from their homes and cars.