How Ukrainian Defenders of Donetsk Airport Set Precedent For Ukraine’s Military Determination Today

Tomorrow, January 16, Ukraine honors the Day of Remembrance of Donetsk Airport Defenders. Determined Ukrainian troops held the airport's defenses for a grueling 242 days under intense artillery attacks and relentless gunfire in brutal and unforgiving conditions, earning them the nickname “Cyborgs.” 

The Cyborgs have become a lasting symbol of Ukraine's uncompromising resistance, courage, and fortitude.

The battle for Donetsk Airport was fought from May 26, 2014, to January 22, 2015, resulting in far more than the destruction of the airport, but served a much larger role in the war that is seen today.  

The Donetsk airport, officially named Sergey Prokofiev International Airport, was built in the 1940s but rebuilt ahead of the Euro 2012 football championships, which Ukraine and Poland co-hosted. It’s located on the northern edge of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine’s biggest city, which has been under Russian occupation since 2014. 

Donetsk city is located in the region of Donbas (short for Donetsk coal basin). Donbas has been at the heart of Russia’s war in Ukraine, facing nearly 11 years of civilian suffering and devastation at the hands of the Kremlin’s forces. 

242 days of the Donetsk airport defense. 242 days of our defenders’ fortitude and bravery. The Cyborgs' feat proved that Ukrainians are unbreakable. Back then, the world could already see what Ukrainians were capable of. We remember everyone who fights for our country.

President Zelenskyy

What led to the battle of Donetsk airport?

The invasion of the Donbas region came after Ukraine’s fight for freedom during the Maidan Revolution , which began in 2013. The Kremlin-backed president Yanukovych was ousted and fled to Moscow. Continuing Russia’s war tradition, they saw the revolution as a threat to their geopolitical interests, as Ukraine was distancing itself from Russia and growing closer to the West. 

In response, under the guise of separatist forces, Moscow invaded and annexed Crimea, and their war in Ukraine began. Emboldened by the mild response from the international community and the West, Russia escalated its aggression into the Donbas and Luhansk regions before ultimately leading to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

The initial occupation of the Donbas and Luhansk regions resulted in Russia’s self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR). Both of which have their own pro-Russian “people’s army”, which continues to operate in the occupied territories today.

In April 2014, Russian Security Services (FSB) officer Igor Girkin (Strelkov), illegally crossed the Ukrainian border with Russian special forces and began seizing Ukrainian towns and cities. 

I really am an FSB colonel, and I don’t hide it… I was the one who pulled the trigger of this war. If our unit had not crossed the border, it would have all fizzled out, like it did in Kharkiv or Odesa. It was practically our unit, which got this ongoing war moving.

Igor Girkin

To counteract Russia’s invasion, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine launched the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) conducted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Donbas and Luhansk occupied regions then became known as “ATO zones”. 

Throughout late spring to early summer of 2014, Ukraine’s Defense Forces launched counteroffensives across the Donbas region, liberating cities from the grasp of DNR forces, meanwhile, the battle of Donetsk Airport began.

The Battle of Donetsk Airport

On May 26, 2014, approximately 200 fighters from the Russian Vostok Battalion, pro-Russian Chechnyan forces, and other pro-Russian groups stormed the Ukrainian-controlled airport, seizing key airport facilities including terminals. 

Ukrainian forces demanded that Russian groups withdraw, but they refused. Ukraine sent in airborne units and attacked with aviation and fighter aircraft such as Sukhoi Su-25 jets and Mi-24 helicopters. 

These are simply bandits. Nobody in any civilized state will hold negotiations with terrorists.

Petro Poroshenko

Ex-President of Ukraine

The combined air-land offensive outnumbered the Russian groups which resulted in a Ukrainian victory by the next morning, the 27th of May. More than 50 Russian “rebel” fighters were killed in this battle, Kyiv officials confirmed that they had not lost a single soldier. This was the first of many operational successes for Ukraine across the region.

Though intense clashes had ceased, skirmishes in and around the airport continued during the months that followed. Ukraine’s operational achievements prompted Russia’s first artillery fire from within Russian territory in July 2014, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) UK’s leading defense and security think tank reported. 

Moscow began to attack more aggressively as the prospect of their defeat had become realistic, and the first phase of large-scale incursions by regular Russian troops began.

Russian T-90 and T-72B3 Main Battle Tanks, self-propelled artillery, and MLRSs poured into the area surrounding Ilovaisk, Donbas. In August, Ukrainians were surrounded, and a ceasefire evacuation route for Ukrainian forces was agreed. Russian forces broke the evacuation ceasefire agreement, and 254 Ukrainian servicemen were killed as a result of Russian shelling. A total of 366 Ukrainians were killed during the entire time of the Ilovaisk military operation.

The massacre of Ilovaisk was followed by the signing of the Minsk Agreements on 5th September 2014, its main feature being a ceasefire. Ukraine, Russia, and representatives of the DNR signed an additional protocol to the Minsk Agreements defining a 30km “safe zone”. Russia also promised to close its border to prevent more military equipment and troops from moving into Ukraine. 

Despite the ceasefire, intermittent fighting and attacks by Russian forces continued on the airport and Russia kept sending troop reinforcements into the two occupied regions. 

“The cease-fire does not hold for longer than an hour – this is how long it takes to reload weapons,” Vlad Chorny, the commander of the 5th battalion of the Right Sector fighting at the airport told reporters. 

“Russian forces exploited their victory at Ilovaisk by launching a major offensive against Ukrainian positions outside the city of Donetsk at the Donetsk airport”, defense analyst Franklin Holcomb highlighted in his report “The Kremlin’s Irregular Army”. 

Most of the airport became surrounded by Kremlin-backed forces. Supplies and reinforcement for Ukrainian troops were mainly brought from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled village of Pisky, but supplies were sparse due to ongoing Russian attacks. Those who made the dangerous journey through the limited routes to the airport were often met with a barrage of gun and tank fire from pro-Russian groups. 

The airport’s runway was littered with the burnt-out shells of fighting tanks and armored personnel carriers. Every pane of glass shattered, walls and ceilings pierced with bullets and shrapnel. 

Only three floors remained in the blackened skeleton of the seven-story airport. Ukrainians controlled two of them, the first and the second floors, and Russians occupied from above and below, in the basements. Scores of military men from both sides were wounded and several had been killed. 

Over the next few months, the battle raged on, and the temperature plummeted. As conditions worsened, the battlefield resembled World War II’s Battle of Stalingrad , giving the airport battle the nickname “Little Stalingrad.”

“There is not a single place where bullets or shrapnel cannot reach you at any given time of the day. The terminals we are holding on to are weaker than the Three Little Pigs’ houses, and it is a miracle that they are still standing”, Valerii Rud, who was in charge of mining and de-mining the airport told reporters. 

Ukrainian forces continued to control the terminals and despite perilous conditions, they would not surrender. The battle continued and Ukrainian troops had inflicted “serious losses” on enemy forces Ukrainian military spokesman Andrii Lysenko said in November 2014.  

Throughout the cold winter nights, fires could not be lit to keep the troops warm as this would draw attention to their locations within the buildings, even the red glow from a cigarette butt made smokers a target for snipers. Ukrainian troops endured extremely perilous conditions and this is how their nickname “Cyborgs” was coined. 

“Back then, our guys held only half of the first floor of the northern part of the terminal. They had to defend in a hall torn by all winds, its walls shone through from numerous shellings, concrete columns ricocheted, and snipers constantly shot through the area. It was even impossible to finish smoking a cigarette – the sniper would fire at the third puff…” Chief of intelligence of the 81st Brigade, call sign "Rahman," said. 

By December, the skeletal remains of the old terminal could not protect Ukrainian troops from Russian attack. As a result, Ukrainians pulled back into the new terminal where Russian troops began focusing their attack. Ukraine's resources and access to support from their positions in Pisky became even more limited. Russians began closing in on all routes surrounding the airport. 

On January 10, 2015, Russian forces launched a three-day attack, focusing on the airport's air traffic control tower, a symbol of Ukraine’s defense. On January 13th, after months of continuous shelling, the tower fell. 

The control tower is seen by analysts as a metaphor. “Since May 2014, the tower had stood stalwart in the face of the Russian-backed invaders, as had the brave Ukrainians who had come to the airport’s defense. Battered throughout the contest, it defiantly stood until it could take no more.”

The black, blue and red flag of the DNR was hoisted above the skeletal remains of the control tower. 

Russian forces gave the Ukrainian military a 5 pm deadline to vacate the airport, but they stood firm and refused, and the siege continued. Ukrainian troops were no longer able to evacuate their injured men from the airport. Russia began sending more military, tanks, and rockets into Ukraine, boosting their troop numbers in the region to around 9000 according to the then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Finally, the concrete of the terminal, just like the tower, could stand no more. The floor of the terminal above Ukrainian troops was blown up and collapsed on top of them resulting in more than 50 Ukrainians being killed or injured.

Evidence later showed that the explosion had been planned for a long time. Russian troops had“mined the overlapping plates in the basement while covering themselves with fire. Those who occupied the upper floors installed explosive devices on the columns that supported the slabs between the floors, triggering the explosion remotely, according to According to the Virtual Museum of Russian Aggression. The blast was so powerful that all floors of the concrete structure collapsed. 

Between January 18, to January 21, 2015, it was reported that 58 Ukrainians were killed in the shelling by pro-Russian forces. 51 military were reportedly killed on January 20th alone.

On January 21, 2025, Colonel Andrii Lysenko the ATO spokesman, at a briefing at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center announced that the “airport was completely destroyed and not suitable for defense.” Ukraine had no option other than to withdraw from the rubble of what was left of Donetsk airport. 

During the battle, more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, more than 500 wounded and many were taken prisoner. 

Ukrainian defenders of Donetsk airport included; Special Forces of the 3rd Separate Regiment, soldiers of the 79th, 80th, 81st, 95th Separate Airmobile and 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigades, 57th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, 90th Separate Airmobile and 74th Separate Reconnaissance Battalions, soldiers of the Dnipro-1 Regiment, the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps (DUK), volunteer groups and medics. 

The surrounding areas of Donetsk airport became a de facto frontline, one of the most fierce and violent frontlines throughout Russia’s war on Ukraine which continues to this day. The battle for Donetsk airport became significant, a symbol of courage that set a precedent of Ukrainian resistance throughout Russia’s war on Ukraine. Battles of Bakhmut and in the defense of Mariupol, Azovstal and many more, Ukrainians continued to show strength by holding their positions, until the very end. 

Tomorrow, Ukrainians across the world will be paying tribute to the Cyborgs of Donetsk Airport.

Unbreakable warriors who survived, but the concrete did not. Invincible. Strong. Brave. Our heroes! We remember them. We will take revenge and win.

Dmytro Lubinets

Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights