By Darko Lazar
On February 24, a CNN crew and the network’s international correspondent Matthew Chance were told about gunfire some 20 kilometers from the center of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. They immediately headed to the scene.
When they got there, the reporter and his team captured dramatic footage of a firefight featuring a small group of Russian soldiers. In the video that was quickly circulated around the world and viewed by millions, the soldiers are seen getting into firing positions on the fringes of the massive Gostomel airfield.
It’s difficult to say how many of those millions of viewers actually realized what they were watching, but the footage tells a very important story.
For starters, the men in the video are elite Russian special operations personnel – also known as ‘Spetsnaz’. They disembarked dozens of attack helicopters heading south from Belarus. It had only been a few hours since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of military operations in Ukraine, but the Spetsnaz were already on the outskirts of Kiev.
Russian forces entered Ukraine from several different directions. They have since broken through Ukrainian lines on numerous fronts, including the breakaway Donbass region, where some of the heaviest fighting is reportedly taking place.
One of the crucial ingredients for a quick and successful military operation in Ukraine is the Gostomel airfield. Previously known as Antonov Airport, Gostomel is a cargo airfield in the northwestern suburbs of Kiev.
The facility, which houses the world’s largest aircraft – the Antonov An-225 Mriya – has a 3,500-meter runway and covers hundreds of hectares of land. The airfield is equipped with everything needed for the takeoff and landing of heavy military transport aircraft.
From a military standpoint, Gostomel offers more favorable conditions than the two other airfields surrounding the Ukrainian capital. It isn’t nearly as busy as the international airports in Zhuliany and Boryspil, it is closest to both the city center and the Belurussian border, and it sits on the right bank of the Dnieper River, where all of Kiev’s administrative buildings are located. Gostomel was also going to be used for last minute evacuations of Ukrainian officials.
In short, this is the ideal launching pad for an attack on Kiev. The Spetsnaz, which specialize in operating behind enemy lines, arrived at the airfield in the early hours of February 24. Their mission was to secure Gostomel in order to receive planeloads of brothers in arms. But something went wrong.
The opposing side quickly realized the significance of what was unfolding on Kiev’s doorstep and dispatched hundreds of their troops to recapture the strategic airfield. Presumably, the runway was badly damaged during the fighting, making it impossible for aircraft to land.
What followed was an intense battle and an equally fierce propaganda campaign, in which Ukrainian officials and even the UK’s Secretary of Defense, Ben Wallace, declared that the airfield had been retaken and that hundreds of Russians were killed.
However, when the sun rose over Ukraine on February 25, the fighting was still ongoing. The Spetsnaz were besieged but holding on. In the hours that followed, Russian tanks and other combat vehicles began appearing in and around Gostomel. The Russian battle groups that had traveled all night by land from the Belarusian border finally reached their besieged comrades. Gostomel quickly fell and the Ukrainian troops were pushed back. Before nightfall on the same day, Russian forces were spotted inside Kiev.
Kiev’s human shield
On February 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that he was ready to sit down for talks with Russia in order to end hostilities. On the same day, Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded with an offer to hold talks in the Belarusian capital Minsk. But a few hours later, the Ukrainian side wanted the meeting moved to Warsaw, and then stopped all communications.
By the following day, Kiev had officially declined talks with Russia, citing the “terms” put forward by Moscow through intermediaries.
Something else happened around the same time. Both Putin and the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesperson, Major General Igor Konashenkov, warned that Ukrainian nationalists were gearing up to use Kiev’s residents as “human shields.”
According to Konashenkov, the Ukrainian side stationed Grad rocket launcher systems in Kiev’s residential areas. He said the Pentagon and the CIA are training Ukrainians on how to use such weapons in populated areas to draw fire from the Russians and inflict civilian casualties.
“Your nationalist leadership uses the same methods as the terrorists. They want to use you as a human shield,” Konashenkov told Ukrainian citizens in reference to similar tactics employed by US-backed terrorist groups during the war in Syria.
Konashenkov also promised that the Russians wouldn’t target civilians. But there is no denying that the introduction of these tactics complicates everything. Zelensky and his Western backers are aware of this, which would explain the sudden procrastination over negotiations with Moscow. For NATO and its assets on the ground, the primary objective right now is to draw Russia into a bloody urban war and to make Ukraine ungovernable.
This would explain why Ukrainian nationalists are handing out truckloads of automatic weapons in the streets of Kiev. Anyone who wants a machine gun can pick one up - free of charge.
Ukraine’s defense ministry, which also recommended residents start making their own Molotov cocktails, confirmed that it distributed nearly 20,000 machine guns to ‘defend the city’. But it’s clear the recipients aren’t interested in defending anything, with Kiev already experiencing a dramatic spike in murders and robberies. Bodies riddled with bullets are becoming an increasingly common sight on the streets of the Ukrainian capital. And by the time those images make their way to the mainstream media, the carnage will probably be blamed on the Russians.
For the Russian military, there is a daunting task ahead. Eliminating Grad rocket launchers in densely populated areas and dealing with heavily armed vigilante squads cannot be done from the air or with heavy equipment like tanks. This, too, will fall on the Spetsnaz.
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