Reportage“Le Monde” entered the tarmac of the air base in northern kyiv, taken by the Russians and then liberated by the Ukrainians. A key episode from the beginning of the war, which has not yet revealed all its secrets.
Along the hangar, the Russian troops lined up light armored vehicles on one side and military trucks on the other, flank to flank. A few steps ahead, a hundred uniformed Chechen soldiers stand at attention. At the airfield of Hostomel, a Ukrainian town on the outskirts of kyiv, they are preparing to be decorated for “heroic behavior” in the assault that brought down the military base on February 24, 2022. It is General Magomed Touchayev, right arm of the Chechen president, who will officiate in person. The ceremony must be perfect, as Moscow knows how to stage them to create its mythology.
Facing the soldiers on the tarmac, a symbol of Russian victory completes the decor: the Antonov AN225, pride of Ukraine, exhibited like spoils of war. The only copy of the largest aircraft in the world, this 85-meter-long freighter with the same wingspan had Hostomel as its home port. The device name: mryia, “dream” in Ukrainian. Russian strikes seem to have decapitated him during the fighting. The image is monstrous photogenic: the front of the aircraft is lying on the ground, severed clean, while the cabin, still on its landing gear, lets a glimpse through a gaping hole of the entrails of the fallen giant. One of these wings hangs down, broken. That’s it, everything is in place, the parade can begin. But nothing will go as planned.
Four months later, at the aerodrome, reconquered in the meantime by the Ukrainian army, Sub-Colonel Vitaliy Roudenko searches with the end of his ranger the shards of shredded metal and burnt bodywork in piles in front of the hangar. To this day, shreds of a Chechen uniform, a shoe and, everywhere, dried blood in long streaks appear. “Military drones had warned us of the preparations for the parade”, remembers Sub-Colonel Rudenko.
” Top secret “
The ceremony is in full swing when the Ukrainian army begins its strikes, according to him. No survivors, the hundred men mowed down at once, including General Touchayev. Revealed by the governor of kyiv, Oleksiy Kuleba, the story had never been told until now and Serguei Naïdionov, deputy commander of the base, confirms it in turn. He does not hide a certain jubilation. When would it have happened? Sub-Colonel Roudenko takes a cigarette from his packet. Eyes narrowed, he eludes, in the laconic tone of the ” top secret “ : “around mid-March”.
However, there is something wrong with the story: the death of the Chechen general Magomed Touchayev. It had already been loudly claimed by kyiv, but on another date, February 27, and during another action, the destruction of a column of tanks in the town of Hostomel. A Chechen prisoner had attested to this at the time, without ever advancing any proof. Very quickly, the information was denied by the Chechen authorities, triggering a fierce battle on social networks between kyiv and Grozny. This time, we have just plunged into the heart of hybrid warfare, where the din of communication mingles with that of weapons.
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