Official Ukrainian propaganda says that the sonorous name "cyborg" appeared at the suggestion of the opposing side. The site segodnya.ua contains the story of one radical Ukrainian:
"A refugee from Donetsk came to work for us … One of his former employees got drunk on glass-washing and went to fight for the" DPR ". Our refugee calls today to find out how this pretzel is doing. After a minute of conversation, he calls everyone and turns on the speakerphone. “Novorossii”: he says, damn it, I don’t know who is defending the Donetsk airport, but we cannot knock them out for three months. We decided to fill the collectors with sewage drains. We fired them with "hail" - they are underground, we fill the collectors. And, like, we seize the territory of the airport. They got over the collectors right up to Avdiivka, went upstairs, returned to the top of the airport and again piled on us, and we At the same time, they seized our weapons, our equipment and took several dozen prisoners from us … I, he says, do not know who is sitting there, but these are not people - they are cyborgs."
However, not only the defenders were distinguished by such resilience - almost daily losses were borne by the armored groups of cyborgs plying between the DAP (Donetsk airport) and the locations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The large, flat areas adjacent to the airport runway were very well suited for sniper fire with militia tank guns. So, on September 29, an armored personnel carrier of the 79th airmobile brigade, packed with cyborgs, died from a 125-mm projectile. As a result, 16 fighters went to the other world. It is interesting that during the fierce confrontation between the militia and the cyborgs, the actor Mikhail Porechenkov did not have the most unambiguous act, who on September 30 fired at the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the airport from a large-caliber machine gun. Mikhail forgot to remove the PRESS markings beforehand …
In order to justify the gradual squeezing of units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and volunteers from the airport, the Ukrainian command announced the mass of Russian troops storming cyborgs. So, the 16th brigade of the GRU of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, the 200th special purpose brigade of the Southern Military District from Rostov, a motorized rifle battalion and a tank company of the 4th separate guards Kantemirovskaya tank brigade, a battalion of the 22nd separate brigades of the GRU General Staff of the Russian Federation, an assault company of the 106th Guards Airborne Division. In general, the entire color of the Russian army for several months knocked out stubborn cyborgs from the DAP. Moreover, at the beginning of December, according to "reliable" Ukrainian data, more than 30 soldiers of the elite subdivision of the Russian FSB "Vympel" were killed in the airport area. The Ukrainians are especially proud of the fact that in the entire previous history of Vympel, the fighters lost only 29 people, and here in two days at once about 30.
In fairness, it should be noted that there were also failures in the actions of the militia at the airport. On November 14, the militias occupied the fire station of the airport and quite seriously ruffled the convoys of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, moving towards the terminals. But the battles were then fought by the "Somalis", who by that time had gone through the fire and water of the battles in the Donbass. But when they were replaced by brave, but not fired Cossacks, tragedy broke out. Six tanks approached the fire station and shot at a strong point from a distance of 150 meters. Due to inexperience, the Cossacks could not respond with the "Fagots" in service and lost seven soldiers from tank fire.
Over time, the cyborg units were pushed out of the old hotel terminal, and the front line became discontinuous. This created very uncomfortable conditions for artillery support from the Armed Forces - now mortars and shells could easily cover their own forces. At the same time, the militia did not leave a chance to everyone who tried to break through to the besieged cyborgs in the daytime. All work on the delivery of goods, food and the evacuation of the wounded had to be done at night. By mid-December, the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out an operation to rotate cyborgs, evacuating about 50 fighters from the airport. In the course of this, Motorola's famous meeting with the battalion commander of the Ukrainian landing Kupol took place. The latter would later say: "I am very pleased that we found a common language. As we had an agreement, everything happened, without changes. It was very nice to meet the commanders. I am very glad that it happened. I think we are still We will celebrate. I believe that this is a fraternal war, the main thing is that the top is sorted out, and we are soldiers, we are waiting. We were told - we are doing. " It is still not known for certain whether the Kupol was from the 93rd or 95th brigade. As well as the motives of the militia's tacit observation of the rotation of cyborgs are not fully understood. According to one version, this was a concession in exchange for the safety of infrastructure facilities in Donetsk, the destruction of which by the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine would lead to a humanitarian disaster.
By mid-January 2015, the phase of destruction of the remains of cyborgs at the Donetsk airport begins. This is how the Ukrainian side looks at it (information from the resource nakipelo.ua).
“On the morning of January 13, the militants put forward an ultimatum: before 17:00, the cyborgs must leave the airport or they will be destroyed. The Ukrainian military refuse and ask the command for reinforcement and artillery support. On January 15, the attack on the Ukrainian positions begins again: the militants have been trying all day to push the fighters out of the new terminal, firing at it with mortars and Gradov. The reinforcements of the Ukrainian paratroopers break through in the DAP, the "cyborgs" counterattack the terrorists and knock them out of the 2nd floor of the new terminal. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, two soldiers were killed in the battles for the airport on January 15. Volunteers talk about 6 more wounded, 2 of whom are serious. On January 16, DAP defenders report that part of the terminal floors have been seized by pro-Russian militants who are letting in unknown gas. The battles begin around 6 am and end only the next day, around 3 am on January 17th. On January 17, after a relative lull, a fierce battle begins at the Donetsk airport: the positions of the "cyborgs" are intensively fired upon from the Grad. Towards evening, help makes its way to them: they manage to take out 3 dead and 20 wounded."
In fact, all the work for the militia was done by Grady and an unknown gas - this is the version of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The real work of taking the airport began with several accurate shots from tank guns, as a result of which the control tower collapsed. Now the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has lost its "eyes". The next step was the professional work of the EW specialists, who competently drowned out all the negotiations of the cyborgs among themselves and with external forces. A special role was played by tanks, which, with maneuverable fire, quickly suppressed outbreaks of resistance at the airport, while leaving from under the return fire. Further, a couple of engineering demining ammunition was dropped on the roof of the terminal, which caused it to collapse. Each assault group, operating in the bowels of the airport, necessarily had sappers, who carried obstacles and barricades to pieces with charges. As a result, now the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had to take steps to return the airport under their control.
The most reasonable was the strike on January 18, during which cyborgs tried to reach the terminal from the east through Spartak and the Putilov junction. But at the roundabout, several Ukrainian tanks were knocked out, and the explosion of a BC on one of them brought down the Putilovsky bridge. The help did not reach the several dozen cyborgs who remained in the blockade - the militia invariably fired at the equipment and manpower.
On January 21, it was all over - the Donetsk airport passed into the hands of the militia, and the exhausted and barely alive cyborgs surrendered. It is noteworthy that the final assault of the DAP was carried out by the militia so skillfully that the Armed Forces of Ukraine still have no desire to take the airport back.
