Hostomel

Overall, it doesn't matter.

With all the armor they lost near Kiev, Hostomel and so on, in other words, dozens of hundreds of armored vehicles burned.

They just trapped us.

And then we started hammering them and they didn't know what to do about it because some of their armor breached into Kiev, right into the capital.

That was his experience.

And there's quite a famous battle that took place to secure the Anitnov Airport.

Hostomel.

Rostomel-Antonov.

Because he was told, "You're gonna go in with paratroopers.

You're gonna seize Hostomel.

You're gonna land, uh, tanks and, uh, and infantry.

You're gonna take Kyiv.

And yeah, so, so I just wanna really first of all take us back to, uh, 2022 and really try and paint a picture for us of what it was like then, you know, the build up to it, um, what it was eventually like when the Russians, uh, invaded, um, a- a- and, you know, try and describe to us what made that then, uh, obviously a, a frontline city.

So, uh, 24th of February 2022, uh, there was, uh, actually a very, very real danger for Kyiv to, to, to actually become frontline city because the Russians wanted to, uh, land in Hostomel, take Hostomel and establish an air bridge, and, uh, from there basically invade Kyiv and take the capital of Ukraine directly, which, uh, they failed to do because, uh, their plan, uh, was kind of okay, but, uh, the implementation of this plan was, uh, like always in Russia, you know.

The, the idea is good, but, uh, the-

[chuckles] Exactly

...

the practical implementation sucks.

So they failed in Hostomel, and they, uh, couldn't, uh, deploy their troops as fast as they liked because our brigade was there, and like brigade, like two, 200 boys, uh, that, uh, were not sent to war because they were conscripts, all right? And, uh, the, the rest of the brigade was in the Luhansk region.

Uh, so they failed, and that is why they, uh, couldn't invade, couldn't cross the Irpin River, and, uh, they did several attempts around Moschun, several other places where they failed as well, all right? Um, and eventually their attack, uh, swallowed itself, like Russians say, [speaking foreign language]

Yeah.

So when they went into Ukraine, we, we knew what happened with Hostomel about the mess there.

And then that was when, you know, Ramzan Kadyrov, uh, the, the chap in, um, in Chechnya, uh, the warlord over there, he's a close friend of, of Putin and he offered, uh, his, his paramilitary troop called the Kadyrovites.

So they're like these, um, they're not built for combat.

March 5th, 2022.

Currently, the Zhytomyr highway, Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, Makarov, and the north of Vyshgorod District remain the most dangerous in the Kyiv region.

Despite the dangers, a number of Fox's TV competitors had already aired dramatic footage from Irpin, one of those suburbs to the northwest.

It showed civilians trying to flee across a river beneath a burned out bridge.

Forty-five civilian facilities were damaged.

Four people were injured, including an eight-year-old child in Hostomel, Kiev region.

Russia struck a warehouse and production facilities with drones.

Four women were injured in Nebro, and remember, this is disproportionately when they're going after civilians, attacking women, children, and elderly.

There's only so much a spec sheet or a clean shooting range can tell you about a weapon.

The first ever major operation to showcase the AK-12 though in history was Russia's attempt at an airborne spearhead during the Battle of Hostomel Airport in Ukraine in February of 2022, and it was all captured on video and released to the public for us to analyze.

The AK-12 was widely fielded in 2018 to replace that aging AK-74, so it reached units just in time for them to train with it before their invasion.

We can see here, Russia's paratroopers, the VDV, were the first units to receive the AK-12 because they were considered one of their more elite units.

Despite being designed roughly 70 years after the original AK-47, the AK-12 preserves the same overall control scheme and manual of arms that the Russian troops are used to.

It does make for slightly longer reloads though compared to something with a bolt release like the American M4 or other Western designs.

russian troops also make use of their full auto setting a lot more than western troops which showcases their overall doctrine for infantry combat and how it's different even for suppressive fire western troops still prefer to put rapid single shots closer to the target and leave the automatic fire to their machine guns but that's just a little bit of doctrine talk for you Switching to the view of a different unit just as they land at the Hostomel airfield, here we see exactly why Russian paratroopers need a lightweight combat rifle.

They carry a literal ton of gear during air assault operations, and helicopters aren't known for their roomy interiors.