Donetsk Airport. Before and After. Donetsk Sergey Prokofiev International Airport an airport located 10 km northwest of Donetsk, Ukraine. It was built in the 1940s and 1950s and rebuilt in 1973 and again from 2011 to 2012. On July 26, 2011, Borys Kolesnikov, the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Infrastructure, opened a new runway at the airport with a length of 4000 m and a width of 75 m. Two days later, the runway began to take regular and charter flights. On May 14, 2012, the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, opened a new seven-story terminal with a capacity of 3,100 passengers per hour. In April-May 2014 ( according to some sources by the RAND plan composed for Ukrainian government) it became HQ and foothold of UA government forces. The first attack on the Donetsk airport was made on May 26th 2014, though it was failed, since the newly formed Vostok battalion commander Khodakovsky ordered not to take any serious armament there, arming his men only with small arms and dummy Strela MANPADs, promising easy victory over the Ukrainian specops and mercenaries that held the airport. Indeed, militias entered the airport without problems, but it turned out that they were only led into the trap. They watched helplessly as UAF troops deployed and aimed ZU-23-2 AA cannon at them. Some time later UAF aviation struck Donetsk airport and Tochmash factory of Donetsk, leading to high casualties among civilians as well. More than 100 militias were killed without even a chance to fight back. Since May 27th and up to late June there were no combats around the Donetsk airport. Until the moment DPR Intelligence Agency head, major general Petrovsky and his specops started conducting operations at the airport, aimed to neutralize enemy personnel and vehicles. Donetsk center was shot by the SPAs from the positions beside the terminals, thats where Petrovskys specops destroyed them. The situation continued like that up to late September, when famous by the Ilovaysk defense commander Givi was assigned to take the airport. Several days after the beginning of the operation another legendary NAF commander -- Motorola was sent to support him. Thats when the most intense phase of the battle started. Though airport already had no strategic meaning, it was the only place where NAF troops were allowed by the RF ( who controlled the humanitarian aid supplies to DPR and thus could dictate their conditions to the DPR leadership ) to fight the UAF troops who kept shelling the Donetsk. According to the pre-Minsk agreement deal between Ukraine and Russia, UAF troops had to leave the Donetsk Airport territory in exchange for withdrawal of militia troops from Mariupol. But afteer NAF troops abandoned newly taken positions, Ukraine refused to leave the airport. So in the end RF allowed the DPR to start the assault to make Ukrainian party keep its agreement. After the first successes of taking the hangars and the hotel buildings, NAF troops were ordered to stop. The situation froze like that up to the early December, when Sparta recon group (not even expecting for it) managed to seize the Old Terminal building during one of their sorties. The crisis then was resolved by RF general Lentsov who arrived to the airport and forced militia commanders to stop. Thus, the New Terminal wasnt captured then, instead NAF started allowing the rotations for the UAF troops at the airport. On 11-12 January , UAF started the unprecedented violent shelling of Donetsk, so NAF troops finally got the order to take the entire airport. The New Terminal was taken within the 3 days by the Sparta and Somali troops. .. https://youtube/watch?v=miDb4KbGUE0&list=PLY96rNvqGJm84h6ePJOzQ8mgTjRY6l7wj
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 05:03:39 +0000
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