The elite force from the airborne infantry brigade was already in the helicopters when they received the message.
There will be no exercise in Belarus – you will fight in Ukraine.
– All soldiers were damn shocked, people turned gray in the face. Especially as we were shot in the air, says one of those who was later captured.
The paratroopers of the 31st Airborne Infantry Brigade, based in the Russian city of Ulyanovsk, were one of the first elite forces deployed in Putin’s invasion.
According to testimonies from captured soldiers, they had no idea what to expect on the morning of February 24.
They boarded the helicopters along the border between Belarus and Ukraine to take part in a military exercise in Grodno in western Belarus.
Thought they.
Ended up in a death trap
Instead, the helicopters crossed the Ukrainian border and took aim at the airport in Hostomel near Kyiv, one of the Russian military’s first strategic targets.
They were in the air when the officers announced to the troops that the war had begun. For many of the ignorant soldiers, the operation would be a death trap.
100 days into the war has the newspaper The Moscow Times with the help of testimonies from captured soldiers, people who have been in contact with soldiers who participated in the battles and posts on social media examined the brigade’s time in the war.
The 31st Brigade got into trouble immediately. They descended from the helicopters on the airport’s runways and spread around hangars and buildings.
The idea was to quickly secure the airport and be able to use its long runway to fly in additional troops and equipment with large transport planes.
There were no reinforcements
But Ukraine offered strong resistance and its air defenses prevented Russian planes from flying in reinforcements. Remaining at the airport were the soldiers in the first wave of attacks who dug themselves down and waited.
– After three days, it was just us, says Nikita Ponomarev, who was later captured by Ukrainian troops, according to The Moscow Times.
While the airport in Hostomel remained unsecured, crowds of Russian soldiers and vehicles crossed the border into northern Ukraine with a view to Kyiv.
President Zelensky warned that Kyiv was at risk of a Russian onslaught and could soon fall.
But then everything turned around quickly.
The Russian soldiers from the 31st Infantry Brigade were still waiting for reinforcements in their defensive positions when the airport was suddenly shelled by Ukrainian artillery.
The attack lasted for two hours.
Almost no one survived
Dozens of soldiers were killed and much of their equipment was destroyed.
– There was nothing left, not even a cannon tower. Almost no one survived that day, says Ponomarev.
He estimates that about 60 Russian soldiers died. Shortly afterwards, Russia evacuated the airport and withdrew.
Despite the early losses, the 31st Brigade was drawn directly into the ground battles during the attempts to encircle Kyiv.
Among other things, they fought the Ukrainians in the city of Hostomel near the airport.
According to Ukrainian data, about 50 of the brigade’s elite soldiers died during the fierce street battles fought in Hostomel. Pictures show dead soldiers on sidewalks, ditches and on burning tanks.
– Russia’s elite troops were completely annihilated, says military analyst Nick Reynolds to The Moscow Times.
Regrouped to the east
According to estimates in the West, at least 10,000 Russian soldiers may have died during the war so far. According to the BBC, 19 percent of the dead belonged to paratroopers – elite forces that were deployed early in the front line.
Following the Russian failure to encircle and occupy Kyiv, the strategy changed on April 1 and the troops withdrew from northern Ukraine.
Parts of the brigade later took part in the battles around Izyum, twelve miles south of Kharkiv, according to a friend of one of the soldiers, writes The Moscow Times.
Others are believed to have regrouped and been sent east.
In recent weeks, the remnants of the 31st Brigade have been part of the Russian offensive against the strategically important city of Sievjerodonetsk.
No heat and water
Many intelligence reports from the war have stated that Russian units were plagued by low morale and substandard supply lines.
– Salaries are not paid. There is no drinking water, toilets and electricity in the base. They had to go together and rattle to a gas generator, says Denis Tokarev, a former soldier in the 31st Brigade who is still in contact with his comrades, to The Moscow Times.
According to information from the Ukrainian military, it has gone so far that 25 soldiers have refused to regroup to the fighting in the eastern part of the country.
The brigade appeared in an incident around a stolen camera that was recently spread.
Soldiers at Ukraine’s 24th Mechanized Brigade made a remarkable discovery as they searched a defeated Russian vehicle in Luhansk in mid-May.
They found a Sony digital camera with a memory card that contained about a thousand pictures. Of these, eleven photos and three short video clips showed Russian soldiers during breaks in the fighting.
“Are there even any left?”
Other photos depicting a Ukrainian family and were taken before the outbreak of war. The camera was probably stolen by the Russian soldiers when they took part in the battles around Hostomel.
Also in Luhansk, soldiers from the 31st Brigade died according to the Ukrainian military.
– The Russians took the camera with them in a BMD (an amphibious anti-tank vehicle intended for air landing) and after successfully knocking out the vehicle’s crew, the camera was found in it, the military stated for Radio Free Europe.
In the brigade’s hometown of Ulyanovsk, the most obvious evidence of the losses is all the recently dug graves in the cemeteries, writes The Moscow Times.
Pictures shared on social media show at least 42 such graves.
Relatives have also used social media to pay tribute to relatives who died in the war, which many of them did not know they would fight.
“Another one from 31st. Are there even any of them left? ”, Writes a woman whose nephew died in Ukraine.