It was 5.30 a.m. on a cold winter’s morning at Antonov Airport, when Vitalii Rudenko, a commander of the Ukrainian airfield’s national guard base, awoke to a phone call.
Get up, the duty officer called down the line, and be ready for combat. Minutes earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin began broadcasting a state address, in which he announced the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
As the speech finished, booms resounded across Kyiv. Columns of Russian tanks began pouring into the country, heading for the capital.
Rudenko dressed quickly and issued an order for his soldiers to do the same. His unit of about 120 soldiers had been at the Hostomel airport for almost a week, preparing for the possibility of war.