2022 Chornobaivka attacks

Chornobaivka is a small town in the Kherson Oblast in Ukraine. It is a gateway to the city of Kherson and its control gives strategic and tactical advantage in the event of a hypothetical attack on Mykolaiv. This is mainly due to the airport located there, which the Russian Armed Forces intended to use as a landing point during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is why Alexander Lemenov, a Ukrainian analyst, defined Chornobaivka as one of Russia's military targets during its war with Ukraine.[9]

On 24 February 2022, on the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia bombed six airports in Ukraine, including the Kherson International Airport at Chornobaivka.[10]

On the morning of 27 February, Russian forces took control of the airport.[11] On the same day, Chornobaivka saw its first Ukrainian attack against Russian forces. The Ukrainian forces bombarded the Russian military with the use of Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 combat drones. The Ukrainian military released a video of the drones carrying out airstrikes on Russian positions, which turned out to be the first footage of Bayraktar drones in action since the beginning of the war. This event occurred on the second anniversary of the 2020 Balyun airstrikes by the Russian army that killed 34 Turkish soldiers in Syria. The Turkish embassy in Kyiv described the airstrikes at Chornobaivka as "revenge" for the 2020 Baylun incident and declared that "there is such a thing as divine justice".[7]

On 7 March, the Ukrainian military claimed the destruction of 30 Russian military helicopters that had been stationed at the airport, as well as striking other Russian equipment and manpower.[12] Afterwards, on 15 March, Governor of Mykolaiv Oblast Vitaliy Kim claimed another Ukrainian attack on Russian forces in Chornobaivka.[13]

On 16 March, Ukrainian forces once again shelled the Russian-controlled airport claiming the destruction of seven of their military helicopters.[14] The Wall Street Journal reported that "Ukraine carried out an airstrike on the Kherson airport, which is now a Russian airbase, and satellite imagery of the tarmac showed seven destroyed or damaged Russian helicopters, some of them engulfed in flames".[15]

On 18 March, there was a new Ukrainian attack on Chornobaivka that targeted the position of the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, allegedly killing the commander of the 8th CAA, lieutenant general Andrey Mordvichev.[3][4] Russian sources did not confirm his death[16][17] and on 28 March, footage appeared allegedly showing Ramzan Kadyrov meeting with Mordvichev and other commanders in Mariupol.[18][19]

Between 19 and 24 March, Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine claimed Ukrainian forces attacked the airport five more times, inflicting casualties and equipment losses on Russian forces.[20][21][22][23][24] Arestovych explained the strikes by stating that many Russian helicopters going from Crimea to Ukraine were being forced to use the airport at Chornobaivka in order to land. Due to the flat plain terrain of Ukraine, according to Arestovych, the Ukrainian forces could easily attack the Russian forces.[23] During the attack on 24 March, Ukraine claimed that a second Russian general was killed at Chornobaivka during this attack and named him as lieutenant general Yakov Rezantsev, commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army.[6]

Between 27 March and 1 April, Arestovych claimed four more attacks took place at Chornobaivka.[25][26][27][28] On 28 March, when one of these attacks happened, Russia also reported having shot down one drone and five missiles from Ukraine at Chornobaivka.[8] Following the attacks on 1 April, Arestovych claimed Ukrainian forces had managed to destroy an entire Russian battalion at Chornobaivka.[28]

On 14 April, Arestovych reported that the fifteenth attack on Chornobaivka by the Ukrainian army had taken place, destroying ammunition depots of Russia's 22nd Army Corps.[5] Arestovych later claimed that, on 17 April at night, the Ukrainian forces had again destroyed Russian military equipment stored in Chornobaivka's airport.[29] He briefly announced on 24 April that the seventeenth Ukrainian strike on Russians in the town had occurred.[30] Arestovych said that on 2 May, the Ukrainian army destroyed another Russian ammunition depot following another attack.[31]

Due to the large number of attacks the Russian forces have suffered at Chornobaivka, the settlement has been described as having reached a "legendary" status in Ukraine. On Ukrainian-language social media, a wave of memes appeared mocking the reported failures of Russia in Chornobaivka.[32][33] Furthermore, Alcohol Ukulele, a Ukrainian music band, composed a song in Kryvyi Rih about the events in Chornobaivka.[34]

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented that "Ukrainian Chornobaivka will go down in the history of war" and that "this is a place where the Russian military, their commanders, have shown themselves completely... as they are—incompetent, able to simply drive their people to slaughter".[35]

• List of Russian generals killed during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine