Ukrainians rejoiced at the explosions at Saky airfield in the occupied Crimea. In 1945, Roosevelt and Churchill flew there to participate in the Yalta Conference, in 2014 the UAF took out all its aviation

The airport near the city of Saky is one of the largest in Crimea. In 2014, the Russians captured all Crimean airfields, and are now using them as bases for combat sorties to the frontline. Since the beginning of the occupation, Russia has been turning the peninsula into a military base, forming new military units in Crimea and rebasing many of its planes and ships there.

The airfield itself was built for cadets of the Kachyna Higher Military Aviation School, which was opened in 1910. In Soviet times, there was also a military unit at the airport. In 1945, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt flew there to take part in the Yalta Conference. They traveled to Yalta in military jeeps.

In 1977, a unique simulator "NYTKA" was built on the basis of the airfield. On it, Soviet pilots learned to take off and board an aircraft carrier. The closed military town Saky-4 was built near the airfield. After the collapse of the USSR it received a new name — Novofedorivka.

During the collapse of the USSR, the 1063th Center for the Combat Use of Naval Aviation was based at the Saky airfield. In 1992, all its collective took oath to Ukraine. A year later, the airfield was transferred to the command of the Naval Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and the Air Force of the Navy was created on the basis of the airfield. However, Ukraine never had aircraft carriers, and the military doctrine did not foresee combat operations in the ocean, so the NYTKA simulator was not used.

In 1997, Ukraine agreed with Russia on the joint training of pilots at this airfield — the Russians learned to take off and land on an aircraft carrier, and Ukraine received spare parts and components for Su-type aircraft. After the Russian aggression against Georgia in 2008, the joint use of the airfield stopped, but it was resumed again during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. At that time, Ukraine wanted to receive not spare parts but money for the use of NYTKA, but already in 2013, the Russians themselves refused to train at the Saky airfield.

Before the annexation of Crimea, the Saky airfield was used as the base of the 10th Naval Aviation Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In 2008, it received the honorary name Sakska [Sakyʼs]. During the 10 years of its base in Crimea, the brigade was able to significantly strengthen its aircraft fleet — it had transport aircraft An-2 and An-26, amphibious aircraft Be-12, as well as multi-purpose helicopters Mi-14, Ka-27 and others.

During the annexation of the peninsula, Russian soldiers without identification marks blocked Ukrainian military units. The "green men" — in fact, the Russian military — appeared near the Saky airfield already on February 27. At that time, the Ukrainian military did not pay much attention to them, but very quickly traitors appeared, advocating to go over to the side of Russia. They encouraged the military to betray their oaths and motivated them with higher salaries in the Russian army. Russians also tried to establish contact and later admitted to the brigade command that they were special agents of the GRU of Russia and had come "to save them from the [Crimean] Tatars".

"We have seen that the Russian servicemen themselves treat those who sided with the Russian Federation as garbage. They even lined up separately from the Russians, they were given the dirtiest work, they picked up cigarette butts after Russian servicemen. It was humiliating," said military officer Ihor Totskyi in an interview with Ukrinform in 2018.

At the beginning of March, the Russians stopped persuading the Ukrainian military and began to block the checkpoint of the military unit, trying get there by force. However, then the wives and other relatives of the Ukrainian military, who lived in Novofedorivka, came to them. They stood with placards "This is our land", "We donʼt need your protection" and called on the Russians to go home.

All this time, Russian propaganda actively influenced the local population. It make them the hundreds of promises if Crimea joined Russia and called Ukrainians "fascists and Bandera people". Against this background, the Russian troops began to use the residents of Novofedorivka — they attached St. George ribbons to themselves and also came to block the military unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Ukrainian military noted that the biggest problem was the information vacuum — they did not receive any instructions from their leadership. The then commander of the Navy, Denys Berezovsky, sided with the Russians, and only commands to "hold back" and "not respond to provocations" came from Kyiv. Therefore, the military was stationed in the unit and waited for help to arrive from the mainland. Ihor Bedzai was the acting commander of the 10th Naval Aviation Brigade at that time. The then commander Volodymyr Khomenko was seriously ill and died during these events — in March 2014.

Bedzai said that he was offered to raise the Russian flag over the unit, but he refused to betray the Ukrainian oath. Bedzai said that the Russians were also nervous because they were not prepared that the military unit at the Saky airfield would resist. He was warned that if the leadership of the brigade does not make a decision in the near future, the part will be stormed "not by the military, but by civilians."

In the meantime, the Ukrainian military found out about the fate of the airfield Belbek — by that time, the Russians had already captured aviation equipment there. Therefore, Bedzai decided to take the aircraft, which was at the airfield in Saky, to the mainland. Three people knew about this decision — two in the unit and one officer in the Main Command Center in Kyiv.

The main problem for the flight was anti-aircraft defense. The air defense regiment was based in Yevpatoria, 20 kilometers from the airfield. Bedzai said that they had no information about whether the air defense regiment was captured by the Russians. However, the General Staff assured that there would be no problems with air defense and gave the command to take off. The operation was performed on March 3.

"On that day, the crews were gathered and informed that in an hour we would all take off at the same time. Helicopters take off from parking lots, and planes are launched and taxied to the runway in the shortest possible time. We are going in radio silence mode and at extremely low altitudes across the sea, leaving the air defense zone," said Bedzai.

Initially, the pilots relocated three planes and four helicopters to the mainland. Two days later, another helicopter was taken out. In total, 10 planes and helicopters flew to Mykolaiv. After the takeoff, the Russians, who were based in a hotel near the airfield, became confused but did not take any active actions. Bedzai believed that the Russian troops realized that they were late. Helicopters rose from the nearby airfield in Gvardiyske to intercept the Ukrainians — but unsuccessfully.

After that, representatives of the Chechen unit Vostok arrived at the airfield to join the Ukrainian military. They immediately occupied the building of the command and control post. They were there until the so-called referendum on March 16 was held, and after the pseudo-voting they were replaced by the Russian marines along with armored vehicles.

In the end, the Russians captured the Saky Brigade and the airfield, one of the last Ukrainian strongholds in Crimea. The occupiers tried to storm the unit several times, but the commanders were in the underground storage of the command post. During the assaults, the Russian troops engaged the local population, while the Russian officers themselves stood on the sidelines and just watched. After some time, the Russians blocked the communication and electricity supply, and it became impossible to stay underground without light and ventilation. The Ukrainian military left the airport and moved to the administrative buildings — the headquarters and barracks. There they continued to serve and organize the defense.

Later, the Russians began storming administrative buildings in the same way — hiding behind the backs of civilians. The Ukrainian military could not defend itself against the civilian population, so on March 22 they were forced to leave the headquarters. Then Colonel Bedzai ordered his subordinates to line up on the square for the last time and sing the national anthem of Ukraine.

On April 6, the Saky Brigade suffered its first losses. Late in the evening, Major Stanislav Karachevsky and Captain Artem Yermolenko left the military unit through the checkpoint. There, they had a verbal altercation with the Russians, who called for reinforcements. Instead, the Ukrainian military went to their dormitory, but this did not stop the Russians. Captain Yermolenko managed to hide in his room, and Major Karachevsky was shot by a Russian soldier with an AK-74. Captain Yermolenko was detained by the Russian military, severely beaten, and taken to the Sevastopol Military Command of the Russian Federation. He was released in a few days.

Karachevsky was buried on April 11 in Berdyansk, and in 2015, the so-called "court" in Crimea sentenced the Russian soldier who killed the Ukrainian major to two years in prison.

In general, according to Bedzai, more than 300 of the 900 soldiers from the brigade went to the mainland. The rest remained in Crimea. But after some time, for various reasons, approximately 50 military personnel also returned to the peninsula, including three crew commanders who flew to Mykolaiv with equipment in March.

For the events in 2014, Ihor Bedzai received the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky of the Third Degree. And already, during the full-scale invasion in May 2022, Bedzai received the title Hero of Ukraine, but posthumously. Bedzai died during a search mission near the mouth of the Danube River near Snake Island when his Mi-14 helicopter was shot down by a Russian fighter jet. Now the brigade bears his name — the 10th Naval Aviation Brigade named after the Hero of Ukraine Colonel Ihor Bedzai.

Translated from Ukrainian by Olya Panchenko.

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