26-27 May 2014
The first battle
In the early hours of 26 May 2014, the day after Ukraine's presidential election, armed men of the Vostok Battalion led by Alexander Khodakovsky occupied the new terminal of Donetsk's Sergei Prokofiev airport, built for Euro 2012, and demanded that Ukrainian special forces in the old terminal surrender; Kyiv answered with its own ultimatum. According to ArmyInform, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's outlet, about 116 men of the 3rd Special Forces Regiment and 15 of the 25th Airborne Brigade held the old terminal, against about 220 attackers; Ukraine's Defense Intelligence says Russian servicemen and Chechen-war veterans fought with Vostok. Ukrainian jets and helicopter gunships struck the attackers, paratroopers were flown in, and a Defense Intelligence team was first back into the new terminal. By 27 May Interior Minister Avakov said the airport was under government control, with no Ukrainian dead (the General Staff reported three wounded). Separatist leaders said a truck carrying their wounded to hospital was shot up (Pavel Gubarev claimed 35 killed; the DPR press service did not confirm it). Donetsk's mayor put the dead at 40, two of them civilians; separatists said about 50, and separatist Leonid Baranov up to 100. DPR 'prime minister' Alexander Borodai said the bodies of 33 dead had been sent back to their families, in Russia according to the Moscow Times and Al Jazeera. (Sources: AP and RFE/RL via VOA and GlobalSecurity; TASS; Moscow Times; Al Jazeera; Defense Intelligence of Ukraine; Donetsk Regional Administration; ArmyInform, 26 May 2020; Fox.)
September - early October 2014
Ceasefire and siege
After a quiet summer, the Minsk ceasefire of 5 September did not hold at the airport, the last part of Donetsk still in Ukrainian hands. On 28 September nine Ukrainian soldiers were killed in two fights (ArmyInform); from 29 September DPR forces, with Russian regulars by Amos Fox's account, attacked behind heavy artillery and rocket fire, and on 1-6 October repeatedly assaulted the old terminal and the hangars (Fox; ArmyInform, which counts 11 Ukrainian dead on 3-6 October). The 93rd Mechanized Brigade held the new terminal; special forces and airborne companies the old one and the control tower. Small routes from Pisky, west of the airfield, kept the 'semi-porous' siege supplied (Fox). In the city, on 1 October shells killed at least ten people near School No. 57 and in a minibus (Reuters via VOA); the Ukrainian regional administration blamed DPR rockets and the DPR blamed government forces. Ukrainian defenders were soon being called 'cyborgs'. (Sources: Fox; ArmyInform 20 Jan 2022; Reuters via VOA, 1 Oct 2014; Business Insider citing the OSCE SMM, 17 Oct 2014; Virtual Museum of Russian Aggression.)
Mid-October - early December 2014
The old terminal falls
The two sides now fought inside the same buildings. Accounts disagree on who held which floors of the new terminal: Fox has the DPR on the bottom two floors and the Ukrainians on the third by late October, with Right Sector and Dnipro volunteers alongside the army inside; a defender interviewed by RFE/RL in November described the reverse, with separatists also in the basement. Fox names the Sparta, Somalia and Vostok battalions among the attackers. After a three-day assault, the Ukrainians gave up the old terminal at the end of November or in early December (29-30 November per ArmyInform; 5 December per Fox) and concentrated in the new terminal and the tower. On 1 December Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said of the attackers: 'These are Russian special forces' (Moscow Times). Between 30 November and 11 December the 90th Air Assault Battalion of the new 81st Brigade rotated in; the OSCE monitors observed rotations through the lines. (Sources: Fox; ArmyInform 2022; RFE/RL, Nov 2014; Moscow Times, 1 Dec 2014; OSCE SMM 2 and 16 Dec 2014.)
29 December 2014 - 14 January 2015
The tower falls
Heavy fighting resumed at the turn of the year. A DPR assault on the new terminal on 1 January was beaten off after several hours (ArmyInform); on 31 December, by one account, the DPR also attacked Pisky and took the 'Volvo Center' at its southern entrance (single-sourced). From 9 January tanks and artillery hammered the terminal and the control tower, and on 13 January the tower, which had flown a Ukrainian flag, collapsed (12 January in Fox's chronology). The DPR gave the garrison until 5 p.m. to leave; it refused. The last rotation reached the terminal on 13-14 January. OSCE monitors who got close on 15 January could not go further in because of shelling; they reported substantial artillery damage to nearby homes, condemned the fighting in residential areas and 'strongly regret[ted] the use of civilian areas as firing positions.' (Sources: ArmyInform 2022; Kyiv Post 22 Jan 2015; skeiron.com.ua; Fox; OSCE SMM statement, 15 Jan 2015.)
15-18 January 2015
Counterattack
On 15 January AP journalists saw the rebel flag flying over the terminal as the separatists claimed victory; Ukraine denied losing the building. By 18 January one open-source analyst estimated the DPR held about 90% of it, the Ukrainians a ground-floor section in the north-west reached through a contested western corridor. Fifteen men of the 90th Battalion fought their way in on 16-17 January, and on 17-18 January Ukrainian forces launched a mass operation. Spokesman Andriy Lysenko said: 'We succeeded in almost completely cleaning the territory of the airport', with four soldiers killed and 32 wounded in the previous 24 hours. Fox calls the reports of a Ukrainian retaking on 18 January 'premature.' The push toward Donetsk was stopped at what DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko called the Putilovsky bridge, which he said was blown up; UPI reported the bridge destroyed in a rebel counterattack. Zakharchenko claimed a whole column destroyed and three crewmen captured. (Sources: AP, Chernov and Leonard, 15 Jan 2015; Moscow Times/Lysenko, 18 Jan 2015; UPI and TASS, 19 Jan; conflictreport.info, 19 Jan; ArmyInform 2022; Fox. The bridge's position is approximate.)
19-20 January 2015
The floors come down
On 19 January the attackers set off a large charge that brought down walls and part of a ceiling, wounding and concussing many (accounts differ on which floor), according to Ukraine's Defense Intelligence, ArmyInform and the government's Virtual Museum of Russian Aggression. An 80th Brigade defender quoted by Ukraine's Virtual Museum of Russian Aggression said Russian professionals, including the FSB's Vympel unit, were present. On 20 January, at 2:56 p.m. by ArmyInform's account, a second blast brought the structure down on the defenders: the outlet counts 51 servicemen killed that day, Ukraine's worst single day of the defense. Fox dates the demolition to 21 January and attributes it to Russian special forces; he also writes that Russia sent two battalion tactical groups, about 600 men with T-90 tanks and air-defense systems, on 19 January (not independently verified). On 20 January Right Sector's leader Dmytro Yarosh was wounded by shellfire at Pisky. DPR Defense Ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said on 19 January that DPR losses stood at 16 killed and 62 wounded, and claimed far higher Ukrainian losses. (Sources: gur.gov.ua; ArmyInform 2022; rusaggression.gov.ua; Fox; Kyiv Post; TASS, 19 Jan 2015.)
21-22 January 2015
Withdrawal and captivity
On the night of 20-21 January a column of three MT-LB armored tractors tried to reach the terminal: one was captured with its crew, one destroyed and one overturned (Virtual Museum of Russian Aggression). On 21 January the Ukrainian command withdrew the survivors; Lysenko said the airport was 'completely destroyed and not suitable for defense', that Ukraine still held the fire station and the ground around the tower and runway, and that 16 wounded servicemen had been taken prisoner (the DPR also said 16); the Virtual Museum says about 12 wounded fighters were left behind and captured, besides the MT-LB crew. The 90th Battalion's last men left the tower ruins after calling artillery onto their own position (ArmyInform). On 22 January the DPR paraded the prisoners to the site where a trolleybus had been shelled that morning, killing 13 (Al Jazeera); onlookers threw snow and glass at them. Amnesty said video showed at least one being beaten and that mistreating prisoners violates international humanitarian law. Givi, commander of the Somalia battalion, was filmed abusing captives (RFE/RL, 27 Jan 2015). (Sources: UCMC/Lysenko, 22 Jan 2015; TASS, 22 Jan; rusaggression.gov.ua; AP via Deseret News; Al Jazeera, 22 Jan; Amnesty via UNIAN, 23 Jan; RFE/RL; ArmyInform 2022.)
February 2015
Aftermath
In late February the Moscow Times reported about 20 captured Ukrainian soldiers made to dig their comrades' bodies out of the terminal's rubble; Motorola, a Russian national, defended it. In April Amnesty reported footage of Ihor Branovytsky, a captured airport defender, being beaten in captivity and witnesses who said a separatist commander shot him dead; it said Motorola, who in a phone interview published by the Kyiv Post on 6 April claimed to have shot 15 prisoners, was alleged to have killed him. Ukrainian security services opened an investigation. The General Staff's figures for September 2014 - January 2015, as given by the Virtual Museum, are 109 killed, 446 wounded and six missing; the National Military-Historical Museum of Ukraine gives more than 200 killed and over 500 wounded for the whole defense. On 2 February the General Staff still listed 28 men missing at the airport. The front settled just west of the ruins at Pisky and Opytne. Within weeks the Minsk II agreement was signed (12 February), and on 18 February Ukrainian forces withdrew from Debaltseve under attack by DPR and LPR forces, which Ukraine and Western governments said included Russian troops. (Sources: Moscow Times, 27 Feb 2015; Amnesty International, Apr 2015; rusaggression.gov.ua; National Military-Historical Museum of Ukraine; UNIAN, 3 Feb 2015; VOA, 18 Feb 2015.)
