VOVCHANSK, KHARKIV OBLAST, UKRAINE, Dec 25 — The former airport near the Russian border has been unguarded for almost a decade. Before the full-scale invasion, thousands of tourists from Kharkiv and the region came here to take photos of the unusual location. The place was also popular with non-ferrous metal lovers, who gradually dismantled the equipment and aircraft.
Soviet- and Czechoslovakian-made aircraft are still located here. More than thirty iron birds on an abandoned airfield 4 kilometres / 2.5 miles from the Russian border were a tourist attraction in Kharkiv region, along with the Sharivka Palace, Kytsivska Desert, Singing Terraces, Skovoroda Museum and Krasnokutskyi Arboretum.
In the 1960s, there was a pilot-instructor school here, and helicopter pilots and parachutists were trained at the airfield. These aircraft left the open air in the mid-1980s when the flight courses were moved to Zaporizhzhia.
And while there was discussion about turning the abandoned airbase into a recreation area before the full-scale invasion, Vovchansk is now facing other challenges after more than 200 days of Russian occupation: the city has no gas supply, electricity is intermittent, and the community is shelled daily with guided bombs, S-300 missiles, artillery and mortars.
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Russian army shells public transport depot in Kharkiv with missile. Russian attack hits the northern part of Kharkiv on the night of December 20, damaging the Saltivske public transport depot.
As a result of shelling by the Russian army, Kharkiv transport infrastructure was heavily damaged, including 70% of municipal buses, 50% of trams, and more than 25% of trolleybuses.
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