The battle of Hostomel: How Ukraine’s unlikely victory changed the course of the war

It was 5.30 a.m. on a cold winter’s morning at Antonov Airport, when Vitalii Rudenko, a commander of the Ukrainian airfield’s national guard base, awoke to a phone call.

Get up, the duty officer called down the line, and be ready for combat.

Minutes earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin began broadcasting a state address, in which he announced the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine. As the speech finished, booms resounded across Kyiv. Columns of Russian tanks…