Donetsk airport, built for Euro 2012, has become, without exaggeration, a visiting card not only of the region, but of the whole of Ukraine. It immediately became one of the three largest in the country and was able to receive even such gigantic aircraft as the An-225 Mriya. Its runway was 4 km long and more than 60 m wide.
Donetsk airport in all its glory
Donetsk air harbor scheme
Naturally, with the beginning of hostilities within the ATO, such an object could be used for the operational transfer of equipment and personnel directly to Donetsk. And in accordance with this logic, the militias were supposed to capture the air harbor, if not in the first place, then in the second place. However, since the beginning of the protests and the seizure of the city administration (April 6, 2014), it took almost two months before the militias got their hands on the airport. Only on the night of May 26, Alexander Khodakovsky, a reserve lieutenant colonel who until April 2014 commanded the Alpha special unit of the Security Service of Ukraine in the Donetsk region, began an operation to storm the airport with the Vostok detachment. The "Vostok" was armed with only small arms, which the militiamen seized from local warehouses.
Alexander Khodakovsky
Several onboard KamAZ trucks, deprived of even the minimum reservation, were used as transport. One hundred and fifty soldiers of the 3rd Special Forces Regiment from Kirovograd opposed them. This, of course, a combat-ready unit occupied positions in the old terminal and control tower. Khodakovsky's fighters began the assault at 3.00 am, having in their hands only a plan for the building of the new airport terminal and 80 personnel. The lack of other buildings and underground communications at the storming plans was an omission of the command, which would later result in a disaster. At first, everything went well - militia units practically entered the new terminal without a fight, took positions inside and on the roof. Previously, passengers were carefully evacuated from the building.
Fighters of the assault group of the "Vostok" battalion in KamAZ trucks before the seizure of the airport
By 7.00, several dozen soldiers joined the assault as reinforcements. It is noteworthy that Khodakovsky previously managed to establish contact with the special forces from Kirovograd who were defending the airport and even concluded some agreements with them. But despite this, from 11.00 on, the militia stationed at the airport began to work from all directions and from all weapons. They were beaten by snipers from the control tower, four helicopters and two planes were shot at once from the air. Here, by the way, another blunder of the command of the operation was clearly manifested - the lack of MANPADS at the militia. The first casualties were suffered by the militia, who were on the roof of the building. They were in the palm of your hand for aviation, and the gravel surface created a sea of submunitions from the NURS hit, even at a great distance from the target. The situation in the building was not much better: the Vostok fighters (about 120 people) were even forced to erect barricades from ATMs, and many automatic doors were blocked altogether. The enemy, who had occupied the control tower in advance, was in a much more advantageous position, which made it possible to effectively correct the mortar shelling and block the approaches with sniper fire. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the distance from the tower to the terminal was an impressive 900 meters, and the regular SVD fighters of the Kirovograd special forces could not work at such a distance from their hands. Therefore, Vostok's militias were fired from 12.7 mm rifles, presumably M-82 Barrett. And there was absolutely nothing to suppress such a fire: except for machine guns and machine guns, those who sat in the terminal had only a mortar and a single AGS-17. With great difficulty, but managed to hit the tower several times from an automatic grenade launcher, but this only briefly reduced the degree of shelling.
In total, on May 26, battles were fought in the vicinity of the airport: 1) the tactical group (battalion) "Vostok" of Khodakovsky and the detachment of the former "Alpha" from Donetsk; 2) Borodai's subdivision; 3) the soldiers of Zdrilyuk; 4) Pushilin's detachment; 5) subdivision "Oplot". All these groups were poorly coordinated, suffered losses from both enemy fire and friendly shelling.
The new terminal was not completely blocked and a small bottleneck made it possible for the Vostok battalion to retreat. Of the trucks, only two KamAZ trucks remained in satisfactory condition. It was decided to break through to them. At 18.30 KamAZ trucks, packed with armed militias, took off at full speed from the new terminal. Evgeny Norin's book "The Fall of the Donetsk Airport: How It Was" provides the story of a surviving soldier who found himself in one of the KamAZ trucks:
“Our KamAZ takes off from the terminal, and we start shooting in all directions, into the air, all around the open area, drove along the highway 4-5 kilometers from the airport towards the city, the distance between the cars is about five hundred to six hundred meters. Two KamAZ trucks go and fire without stopping. A terrible sight! True, I stopped shooting and saw that no one was around. When we began to drive into the city, we suddenly saw that our first KamAZ was on the road. I didn't understand why he stopped. Cars are going by, even people are walking, this is the outskirts of Donetsk. We flew by at an insane speed, I did not have time to make out, someone else was shooting. After five hundred meters, our car was hit by a grenade launcher, a shell hit the driver's cabin, and we turned over. As it turned out, we were lucky, we flew off the board, hurt ourselves, but without fractures. The car, which was hit first, was finished off from machine guns with crossfire, a sniper was shot at the guys, three dozen people died, no less. They also began to shoot at us from somewhere, I threw a machine gun, grabbed one wounded guy, he was from the Crimea, dragged him, ran stupidly through the yards. Our paramedic joined me, he had a submachine gun, I took a weapon and fired on the sides, on the roofs and ran on with this wounded man.
A terrible circumstance: the trucks leaving the airport shot their own. One of the "eastern" platoons mistook the trucks for Ukrainian and met those leaving the airport with fire. Confident that the Ukrainian National Guard was attacking, the ambushes literally riddled the trucks. Having shot the cars, the "eastern" ones came closer and only then did they see St. George's ribbons on the bodies …"
Destroyed KAMAZ trucks
By a fatal mistake, 80 people from the Vostok battalion took part in the execution of their brothers in arms - they knocked out the first KamAZ on Kievsky Prospect in Donetsk near the Magnolia store, and riddled the second on Stratonavtov Street near the Putilovsky Bridge. As a result of the destruction of two trucks, about fifty militias were killed, who were later put on public display in the Donetsk morgue. It is still unknown who decided to take such a disgusting step and allowed to photograph the bodies of the victims. In the future, the photos scattered across the network, accompanied by the nasty remarks of the "patriots" of Ukraine.
It is also worth remembering that among the dead on May 26, 2014, there were at least thirty Russian citizens who came to Donbass as volunteers.
This tragedy did not end the battle for the airport. Ahead was an equally large-scale meat grinder with its heroes and "cyborgs".
