The official agency said that “the destruction of the giant cargo plane occurred in an attack by Russian forces on the Antonov airport in Hostomil, near the capital Kyiv.”
The agency added, quoting the Ukrainian company “Okroboronprom”, which specializes in defense industries, that the cost of repairing the destroyed plane will reach 3 billion dollars, and it will take about 5 years.
The Antonov 225 Mriya set a number of records, such as carrying the maximum weight of commercial cargo, the longest and heaviest payload, and the largest lifting capacity in the history of aviation.
“The occupiers destroyed the plane, but they will not be able to destroy our common dream. We will revive the plane. Our task is to ensure that the Russian Federation pays for the damage it has caused to the Ukrainian aviation and air cargo sector,” Yury Hosev, General Director of Okroboronprom, commented on the incident.
“We will fight for our land until victory, and after that we will rebuild the plane with Ukrainian hands,” Hosev added.
The State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine had confirmed that explosions were heard in the capital, Kyiv, and in the city of Kharkov, on Monday morning.
Earlier, a private American company said that satellite images taken on Sunday showed columns of Russian ground forces moving towards Kyiv, from a distance of about 64 km.
The company “Maxar Technologies”, which has been following the Russian military build-up for weeks, said that the pictures showed that these columns include hundreds of military vehicles.
