DONETSK, Ukraine -- When the gleaming new Donetsk international Airport - named after Russian pianist Sergei Prokofiev - was opened for the 2012 European soccer championship, at a cost of $750 million in state money alone, it was a source of great pride for the locals.
Now that it is a burned-out shell, destroyed by fighting, it is a new source of pride to Ukrainians for a different reason.
The soldiers who have defended this airport from incessant attacks from the Russian army and insurgents they support have become nothing short of legendary and are even called “cyborgs” – indestructible half-men, half-machines — by their enemies.
“If it shows our esprit de corps, then I am glad people are saying this,” said commander of 5th battalion of the Right Sector, the militant nationalist group. He goes under the nom-de-guerre Vlad Chorny. He spoke with the Kyiv Post by phone from the group’s military base on Oct. 8, which he left later in the day to go back to the airport to fight alongside 35 others of his unit.
The airport was attacked five times over the next 24 hours, killing one Ukrainian soldier, according to Col. Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman of the National Security and Defense Council.
Chorny, 33, said that despite the Sept. 5 cease-fire agreement, fighting never stopped at the airport. “The cease-fire does not hold for longer than an hour – this is how long it takes to reload weapons,” he said. Fifty-six Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the cease-fire announcement, Interfax reported on Oct. 7 citing the foreign ministry.
Over the past few weeks, the Kremlin-backed forces who control Donetsk and most of the territory around the airport, launched several attacks to take the airport and even announced that they took it over several times. Most lately it happened on Oct. 3.
But each time they failed.
Using old underground Soviet passages to hide from shelling, Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers each time survived and regained their positions.
“They get out of cellars like rats, so we have to fight to get the area back again every time,” separatist commander with the nom-de-guerre Givy told Novorossia TV on Oct.5. Givy is in charge of taking over the airport.
When a Kyiv Post reporter traveled close to the airport recently, locals and insurgents said the runway was rendered useless by shelling. There were lots of signs of shooting and damage everywhere around.
But Chorny said that landing strips would only require “minimal restoration” to be able to land planes or helicopters. Moreover, the airport is located at the highest spot in the vicinity of Donetsk, which makes it important for both defense and offense.
The Right Sector battalion, which is not officially registered as a volunteer unit, say they have to buy their own guns to fight. “The army gives us ammunition but they are not allowed to give us guns,” Chorny said, adding that his fighters share one Kalashnikov among three people.
But the majority of cyborgs come from the elite 79th and 95th airborne brigades of the army, whose bases are in Mykolayiv and Zhytomyr. They came to replace troops from the 93rd motorized brigade from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and a Special Forces unit from Kirovohrad.
Despite the rivalry between the army and volunteer fighters, Chorny says the airport defenders have become a band of brothers. That, along with discipline and humor, helps them cope with the stress of constant shelling.
“When I give a command to sleep my guys just lie down and sleep” regardless of anything, Chrony said.
The Ukrainian forces took the Donetsk airport in late May, killing dozens of insurgents, including many mercenaries from southern Russia. They have been encircled by enemies since then. Supplies and reinforcement have been patchy because it’s dangerous to take them through enemy territory from the government-controlled village of Pisky, some seven kilometers away.
The separatist fighters have tried a number of different tactics to kick the cyborgs out of the airport, regularly probing airport defenses with heavy artillery. They managed to take some of the buildings over, and even raise the flag of Donetsk People’s Republic over one of them. However, there is still a Ukrainian flag flying over the control tower, which burned during the fights.
The fighting has caused massive losses on both sides.
Military blogger Dmytro Tymchuk reported that Oplot, one of three main Kremlin-backed separatist groups operating in Donetsk, lost up to 40 percent of fighters as killed or wounded on Oct. 3. Chorny claimed the rebels lost “hundreds of people” since they tried to recapture the airport, including Russian troops.
But the Ukrainian side is also suffering major casualties. In one night alone on Sept. 28, nine soldiers were killed there, according to official data. On Oct. 3, four more people died, including two from the Right Sector. At least two soldiers were also killed on Oct. 6, Chorny said.
Dozens of Donetsk residents who live close to the airport, have died from shelling. On Oct. 8 alone five people were killed and 24 wounded, Donetsk city authorities reported.
The Russian proxies accuse the Ukrainian troops of shelling homes, while soldiers say they just return fire. “Why are the separatists hanging around in residential areas?” Chorny says. “We are trying to minimize civilian casualties but with the military equipment we have it’s hard to achieve.”
Mykola Malomuzh, a former head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, said giving up the airport because of casualties would make no sense. “We would create pre-conditions for a strong military base of Russian forces and rebels,” he told Espresso TV on Oct. 2. Malomuzh said Ukraine either has to hold it, or blow it up like the Luhansk airport.
Viacheslav Tseluiko, expert at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, a think tank, says the cyborgs should continue to defend it.
“It has become a symbol of resistance. So holding it is good for military morale,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected].
