Unknown details of the battle for the strategic airfield in Gostomel published - media

BBC News Ukraine reconstructed the chronology and provided previously unknown  details of one of the key battles for the defense of Kyiv, namely how the airfield in Gostomel did not become the gateway to Kyiv for the russians, UNN reports.

Details

The film reports that on February 24, 2022, after 8:00 a.m., a group of special forces from the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine arrived at the airfield in Hostomel to reinforce the National Guard during a possible Russian landing attempt.

According to the BBC, even before the invasion, Ukrainian military scouts visited the Gostomel airfield for reconnaissance, as they considered the north  to be one of the most important directions of the Russian offensive on the Ukrainian capital.

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In the morning of February 24, a detachment of 30 special forces of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, which would later be called "Shamanbat," moved to Gostomel with a specific combat mission.

We were told that an attack was expected. We had to make sure that the airfield could not be captured immediately, to give time for the 72nd Brigade  to bring up artillery

Enemy helicopters began arriving after 11:00. The National Guard and scouts took up the fight, and at the same time, the mechanized Black Zaporozhians of the 72nd moved on a 100-kilometer "march of life" from Bila Tserkva to defend the capital of Ukraine.

Gostomel lacked air defense systems, so the military actually fought the russians who had landed, and they could not work on air targets.

But it was a common problem. Unfortunately, we can't do without it. Well, the situation was such that we were not really prepared for a full-scale invasion

In less than two hours of fighting, the Ukrainian defenders of the airfield, who were not ready for full-fledged combat with the enemy, who significantly outnumbered them both in numbers and in technical terms, ran out of ammunition. In these circumstances, at about one o'clock in the afternoon, the commander decided to leave the airfield. The retreat of the conscripts was covered by scouts. In a few hours, they also left.

Some of the defenders of Gostomel remained at the airfield - some did not hear the order, some were in a bomb shelter. After that, everything was quiet in Gostomel for a while.

The BBC article notes that in the afternoon of February 24, it became very loud in Gostomel again. It was the artillery of the 72nd Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which had just reached Kyiv from its base in Bila Tserkva.

The BBC report also says that on the night of February 24-25, russian troops began to arrive in Gostomel, approaching from Belarus through the Chernobyl zone. A command post was set up at the airfield, and a kind of hub of Russian equipment, ready for further action, began to operate on its runway and in the buildings on the airfield. The 72nd Brigade continued to periodically strike these objects. The burnt remains of Russian equipment in Gostomel are mostly the result of this work.