Fleeing Russian-occupied Hostomel: it’s either Russia or death

Hostomel emerged as a prime target for Russian forces during their advance on Kyiv in February 2022. Situated just 25 kilometres from the capital, the airfield was earmarked to serve as a crucial operational hub for the Russian Armed Forces. The strategic plan outlined the deployment of an elite airborne group to secure the airfield, followed by the arrival of Il-76 cargo planes ferrying the main occupying forces. However, beyond its logistical significance, the airfield served another sinister purpose in the Russians’ scheme: it housed a central camp for both civilian and military prisoners. I spent a week interviewing survivors and speaking with the relatives of those who perished in Russian captivity, endeavouring to uncover which units of the Russian occupying forces might be accountable for this atrocity.

The initial strikes on the airfield by the Russians took place at 4 a.m. on February 24, 2022. During this period, only one company of the National Guard was present at the airfield, primarily comprised of conscripts. Subsequently, after 9:00 a.m., fighters from the Main Intelligence Directorate and a contingent of Special Operations Forces arrived to provide support. Concurrently, units from the 72nd Brigade of the Armed Forces advanced from Bila Tserkva towards Hostomel.

Around 11:00, the first Russian helicopters appeared over Hostomel: cargo Mi-8s and attack Ka-52s, tasked with providing cover for the paratroopers’ landing. Engaged in this operation were elite fighters from the 45th Airborne Assault Brigade of the Russian Airborne Troops based in Kubinka near Moscow, as well as forces from the 31st Airborne Assault Brigade from Ulyanovsk. However, despite their efforts, which the National Guard countered, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), Special Operations Forces (SSO), and the 72nd Brigade, the Russians failed to secure the airfield on the first day. Additionally, the airport runway became unserviceable for aviation due to artillery shelling. Nonetheless, the Russians managed to capture their first prisoners: approximately 20 individuals, including border guards and National Guard fighters.

During the night of February 25, advance units of the Russian occupation army converged on Hostomel via Belarus and the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. In addition to regular military personnel, units of the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) were also present. Journalists from The Ukrainian Week obtained documents from military sources, which revealed that special rapid response units (known as SOBR) and mobile units of special purpose (known as OMON) were among the military groups heading towards Kyiv. The overarching strategy detailed the deployment of these Russian police forces to quell potential civilian protests. Such tactics were customary for the Russians and were implemented along the entire front line, spanning from Kyiv to Kherson.

According to captured Russian documents, police units from the Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Tomsk, and Irkutsk regions were deployed to the Kyiv region. Additionally, forces from the Altai and Krasnoyarsk Territories were observed. It is believed that at least some of these units entered Ukraine from the town of Zhukovka, located approximately 60 km from the Belarusian border in the Bryansk Oblast of the Russian Federation.

On the morning of February 25, fighters from the ‘Ratibor’ unit (OMON), a part of the Rosgvardia from the Krasnoyarsk Territory of the Russian Federation, positioned themselves at the entrance to Hostomel, where roads leading to Bucha, Irpin, and Kyiv intersected. Their primary objective was likely to block access to Hostomel. Consequently, the unit opened fire on military and civilian vehicles passing through. Tragically, this action resulted in the deaths of 11 individuals and injuries to 15 others, including military personnel, police officers, and civilians. Among the wounded was a German citizen, Steve Meiling, who was en route to Kyiv to evacuate his wife and son. Fortunately, despite being wounded, he managed to evade capture by the Russians, seeking refuge in a Ukrainian hospital before later departing Ukraine with his family. Speaking to German media, Meiling expressed his willingness to testify against the Russian military and demanded their prosecution and punishment for their actions.

However, this was just the beginning. Within a matter of days, the Russians seized control of Hostomel, and by March 2, 2022, they had extended their occupation to encompass the northern part of the Kyiv region, including Bucha and segments of Irpin.

At the Hostomel airfield, the occupiers not only established their headquarters but also erected a prison camp, where they detained and subjected both military personnel and civilians to torture.

The existence of this camp remained concealed by the occupiers throughout their presence at the airfield; even residents living in close proximity were unaware of the atrocities unfolding within those administrative buildings. The fate of numerous hostages remains unknown to investigators to this day. However, two years after the region was liberated, it can be asserted with certainty: for most prisoners at Hostomel, the options were stark—either indefinite captivity in Russia or a definite death.

The first way out: Russia via Belarus

We meet tractor driver Oleksandr Kovalchuk near his house in the village of Mykulychi, about 10 km from the Hostomel airfield. An old tractor is parked by the iron fence, and the owner stands near the hood. The man firmly shakes hands with his calloused palm and immediately invites us for coffee in the summer kitchen so that relatives don’t hear the details of the captivity again.

“The Russians didn’t come to us right away; the occupation started on March 2nd. I had already prepared the basement by then and brought bedding, water, and food there. And there we sat with my wife, two sons, a few neighbours, a dog, and a cat. And around noon, Russian armoured vehicles appeared. They stopped not far from us at the intersection and started scouring around the yards,” recalls Oleksandr.

The man recounts that on that morning, Russian troops shelled the village with light armoured vehicles, causing damage to several houses and the school. They forcibly entered the store, where they looted food and alcohol. Groups of occupiers swiftly proceeded to inspect the homes of locals. They also visited Oleksandr’s house: initially, there were two ordinary soldiers searching for cigarettes. However, later, an officer arrived, showing interest in individuals who participated in the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.

“I was already heading for the dugout near my house when I spotted a Russian officer approaching me. He glanced at me, remarked, ‘So, a Maidan activist?’ and struck my knees with the butt of his rifle. I collapsed,” recounts Oleksandr.

The man recalls that afterwards, the Russian confiscated his phone, browsed through the messages in his messenger apps, and asserted that he was “his client.” Assisting him to his feet, the soldier instructed him to keep his gaze fixed on the ground and escorted him towards the centre of the village, where prisoners were being gathered. The man suspects that he might have been “turned in” by one of his neighbours who harboured resentment towards the protests of 2004 and 2014, along with those who supported them. Upon his return from captivity, Oleksandr discovered that this neighbour had fled to Moscow, Russia. However, our conversation partner refrains from disclosing the neighbour’s identity to avoid implicating them, as he is not entirely certain of his suspicions.

Eventually, Oleksandr and several other fighters from the Territorial Defense, who had been taken captive, were transported around the Kyiv region for nearly two days. Throughout the ordeal, they were repeatedly assured they would be handed over to “special individuals.” On March 3rd, they were taken to a wooded area near Vorzel. There, they encountered individuals dressed in black uniforms, accompanied by one individual in civilian attire.

“The person in civilian clothing demanded to know the whereabouts of Nazis and Bandera supporters. I attempted to explain that I was just a humble tractor driver, but they paid no heed. Instead, they struck me on the head with the butt of a rifle,” recounts the man emotionally.

“Then, they escorted me to a pit. I feared they were going to execute me. However, the guard leaned in close and uttered, ‘I’ll shoot you between the legs. You’ll fall into the pit and stay still,’” he recalls.

Oleksandr was the first, and then they took the other captives for ‘interrogation’: one civilian and several Territorial Defense fighters. They were all severely beaten: the man could hear it even from the bottom of his ‘grave.’ Each one was then ‘shot’ in the same way. The Territorial Defense fighters were beaten particularly hard. The ‘interrogations’ were recorded on a small camera. Afterwards, the prisoners were taken to some buildings at the Hostomel airfield. Where exactly— the man cannot remember, as they blindfolded him.

“I understand that the Russians needed a bargaining chip to exchange for their own soldiers. That’s why they were snatching civilians in towns and villages,” the tractor driver says confidently.

Throughout the time they were driven around the Kyiv region, the captives were not given any food or drink, nor were they allowed to use the bathroom. Oleksandr remembers that in Hostomel, he managed to steal a half-litre bottle of water, which they shared among ten people. On March 4, the Russian soldiers herded everyone into refrigerated chambers.

“They drove us out onto the street and told us to run. The whole way, the Russians beat us, whoever and however they could. If any of the captives tried to lift their head, they received a blow from the rifle butt to the face. Eventually, we found ourselves in the refrigerated chambers. These were small rooms, barely enough space for everyone. They didn’t let us out of there. The only time was for ‘interrogations,’ during which we were severely beaten. We had to use the bathroom right on the floor. We literally slept in our own urine and faeces,” the former captive explains, raising his voice.”

Oleksandr doesn’t dwell on the details. He only mentions that some people were tortured so severely that they couldn’t walk afterwards. One of the captives suddenly lost the use of his hands due to beatings and intense pain; he couldn’t use the bathroom or eat. So, the other prisoners fed him to prevent him from starving to death. Although Oleksandr recalls that there was little food, and it was brought irregularly. On the 4th day, March 8th, everyone was taken to the airfield.

“They solemnly announced to us that today is International Women’s Day. There were about 70 captives. They broke everyone’s arms and tied them behind their backs. And within a few minutes, I felt my wrists burning. It was as if they had put our hands into fire. We all screamed in pain. And the Russian who did this walked in front of us and said, ‘Endure it, you animals,'” he recalls.

Then they untied Oleksandr and the others. They brought up two paddy wagons, but all the captives couldn’t fit inside them. Among themselves, the Russians discussed the need to shoot some of the people. From the van where the tractor driver was sitting, they pulled out two individuals: a young man detained for having a calendar with symbols of the ‘Azov’ regiment and one of the Territorial Defense fighters. What happened to them next— the man doesn’t know, as he didn’t witness the shooting himself. He only hopes that those two are still in captivity and will eventually return home. As for the rest of the captives, the Russians took them to the Belarusian city of Gomel.

“We were transported through the Chornobyl exclusion zone. They tried to unload us at the detention centre in Homiel, but there was no space—later, I found out that it was all filled by Ukrainian prisoners. So we spent the night in the woods, somewhere near the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Then, on the morning of March 9, they brought us to the airport in Homiel, loaded us onto an Il-76, and flew us to Kursk. To Detention Center No. 1. When they ‘received’ us there, they beat us severely, put plastic bags over our heads, suffocated us, and filmed it. The Russian guards laughed, mocked us, and said they were ‘riding us like pigs’. I stayed there until April 2022. Then they exchanged me. And I returned home,”— as he speaks, two huge tears roll down Oleksandr’s cheeks.

The second way out: death

I meet with Yulia Baish in Bucha. Her husband Vitaliy had started building their small dream house on a quiet and cosy street here a decade ago. The family had moved in shortly before the full-scale invasion began. Now, the corners of the yard, under the fences, are littered with remnants of windows shattered by explosions. A German shepherd carefully watches from the enclosure, miraculously surviving the occupation. There’s another dog in the house—a Labrador that Yulia brought from Bakhmut. Vitaliy didn’t have time to finish building the house: the full-scale war began.

“On February 24, we heard several explosions. At first, we didn’t understand what it was. At 6 in the morning, we turned on the news. We saw that a full-scale war had begun. Around 11 o’clock, Russian helicopters flew over Hostomel. They were making turns right above the city and periodically firing at the airfield,” Yulia says, gesturing with her hand above her head in a circle, describing the route where the Russian vehicles were manoeuvring over the city.

With her husband and two children, Yulia initially planned to wait out the battles at her mother’s house in the centre of Bucha. At first, they hoped the Russians would tire out, and the fighting would end soon. On the way to her mother’s, they stocked up on supplies at a local store and moved from their home to her mother’s basement. After three days, the shelling intensified, causing plaster to fall from the ceiling of their small shelter. So, on February 27, Yulia made the decision to take the children and her mother and head to Ivano-Frankivsk. Vitaliy stayed behind with Yulia’s stepfather to guard the house.

“I was very nervous. In the morning, my mom and I had some vodka. At 4:00 PM, we left the city towards the Zhytomyr highway. Our soldiers were stationed there. But I was so frightened and in such shock that I kept crying and didn’t understand who they were. They told us to hurry up and leave because the Russians were already somewhere nearby,” Yulia recalls.

Vitaliy’s only means of communication was an old cellphone. On March 7, Yulia got a call from her stepfather, who told her that her husband, Vitaliy, and their neighbour, Volodymyr, had gone to feed the dogs at their house on the outskirts of Bucha but hadn’t returned. Before this call, Vitaliy had let his wife know that the shelling in the city had worsened, and he was glad that she and their children were able to evacuate.

The men vanished within the territory overseen by the Russian 76th and 98th Airborne Divisions, according to information gleaned from captured Russian documents. Both were accused of adjusting Ukrainian artillery fire. They were loaded onto Russian military armoured personnel carriers (APCs)  and transported to a wooded area near the town of Vorzel for interrogation, the same pit where Alexander Kovalchuk had been taken just days earlier. Two days later, on March 9, Vitaliy and his neighbour Volodymyr were brought to empty refrigerated chambers at the Hostomel airfield. Meanwhile, another group of prisoners, comprising about 70 individuals, was being transferred to an Il-76 transport plane in Gomel. Yulia managed to learn little about her husband: those civilians who could still walk after the interrogations were put to work cleaning toilets and the kitchen. They were given meagre rations: crackers, army rations, and a few litres of water once a day. Most likely, on March 11, Vitaliy was taken for further questioning. By the night of March 12, his body had been buried near the torture chamber, in a birch grove just a few dozen meters from the entrance to the airfield canteen. Other prisoners were informed by the Russians that Vitaliy had died of ‘heart failure’.

“I rushed back to Bucha right after the town was liberated. At first, I held onto hope that Vitaliy might still be alive. They found his passport in Belarus, you see. During the occupation, my father-in-law tried to search for him, but they warned him to stay indoors, saying they’d shoot him if he ventured out,” Yulia recounts.

We step outside together for a smoke. In the neighbouring garden, the scars of shelling are still visible: several craters slowly filling with earth. The facade of the house that Vitaliy was building is all battered with debris. Yulia takes a few drags from her cigarette, her gaze distant.

“In April, a soldier who had been released from captivity reported that he had seen Vitaliy in the refrigerated chambers and confirmed his death. Then, in the summer, another former captive named Boris returned, and we teamed up to search for those refrigerators. We travelled around parts of the Kyiv region until we finally reached the Hostomel airfield. But for six months, we struggled to gain access because it’s a restricted area requiring special passes,” Yulia recounts.

“Then, in February 2023, Volodymyr, the neighbour who had been captured alongside Vitaliy, was also released. He knew where Yulia’s husband had been buried. So she returned to the airfield once more. This time, she managed to persuade the security to allow her onto the premises unofficially in order to locate the grave. It took another month for her to convince law enforcement to exhume the body. Finally, in mid-March 2023, accompanied by the Security Service and rescuers, she found herself in a birch grove not far from the airfield’s dining hall,” she concludes.

“The Russians buried him deep, about a meter down. We didn’t locate his body right away because the grave marker was inconspicuous. But I recognised my Vitaliy immediately: his clothes, his hair. There was some rope around his neck. It’s been a year since then, but I still don’t know what caused my husband’s death. And whether any forensic examination was conducted—I haven’t been informed of anything by the investigators,” Yulia says sadly.

The first six months were the toughest for her. Now, it’s getting easier. She found great support from her two sons and the psychological assistance programs that took them to holiday camps. For Yulia, the priority was finding her husband Vitaliy and giving him a proper burial. Now, she’s determined to finish his work and complete their house. There’s still plenty to do: the walls damaged by shell fragments need repair, and the interior needs attention. So, she’s keeping herself busy with work: she’s a sales representative for a company in Lviv and is also launching her own building materials store.”

“And every time I see a Russian plane landing on their infrastructure, every time I read Russians complaining about how scared they are—it gets easier for me. It’s fair. If you stand by silently as your army starts a full-scale war, tortures, and kills us—you also have to answer for it. You did nothing to stop it,” the woman says quietly.

The executioner from Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Krai and the Russian ‘exchange fund’

It’s challenging to determine the exact number of individuals who endured captivity in Hostomel. Complete lists of those held by the Russians are unavailable. Additionally, law enforcement and human rights advocates often only learn of new prisoners incidentally when released military personnel and civilians share their experiences during exchanges. These individuals serve as the primary source of information, filling in the gaps.

“The Russians transported individuals from the occupied Kyiv region to Hostomel, which served as a final stop before they were moved to Belarus and then Russia. We know that the Russians maintained a complex network of facilities for holding civilian hostages. Analyzing the case of journalist Dmytro Khilyuk, who was captured by the Russians in March 2022, taken to Russia, and held captive, provides insight into this process,” explains Anastasiia Panteleeva, an analyst with the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR).

Human rights defenders state that Dmytro Khilyuk, accompanied by his father, was initially detained in the village of Kozarovychi before being transferred to a larger prisoner camp in the village of Dymer. It was at this location that Khilyuk’s father was released, while Khilyuk himself was later transported to Hostomel. Once there, individuals were not allowed to return home. According to MIHR, as of March 2024, at least 215 people have passed through the dungeons in the Kyiv region, with details on 34 individuals still being clarified.

Regarding the tortures at Hostomel airfield, Ukrainian law enforcement has provided information suggesting the involvement of a 48-year-old Russian citizen named Serhiy Vekkolaynen. According to the “Book of Executioners” project, Vekkolaynen held the rank of lieutenant colonel and served as the head of the political work department in the “Ratibor” unit. Additionally, implicated in the torture may be Vekkolaynen’s superior, In addition to torturing civilians at the airfield, they are also accused of the aforementioned shooting of vehicles at the entrance to Hostomel, resulting in 11 deaths and 15 injuries. Ukrainian investigators separately suspect Vekkolaynen of torturing individuals in the village of Zdvyhivka, near Bucha. According to information from Cyber Resistance activists, who managed to hack into the social media accounts of Russian “Ratibor” riot police, as of the beginning of 2023, they were slated to continue their participation in the full-scale war. Additionally, there were plans for training operators of drones, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft systems at the base of this Russian unit. As of April 2024, both Russians have closed their social media accounts and deleted posts from profiles that activists managed to find.

Interviews conducted by The Ukrainian Week with law enforcement agencies suggest that it was Vekkolaynen and Kazeyichev who could have been the so-called commanders of the torture site at Hostomel airfield. Their unit, together with the SOBR of Novosibirsk, was based at the airfield. According to preliminary information, around a hundred people passed through the Russian torture site at the airfield alone, but this number is not final. Some individuals are still in Russian captivity.