The Donetsk airport hasn’t been in condition to accept a flight in months, and every new round of images shows the burnt out husk of a terminal and artillery-scarred runways less unable than ever. That hasn’t stopped it being a main focus of the war.
After losing the airport to the rebels over the past week, the Ukrainian military is now claiming to have retaken it, along with parts of the surrounding area, in what they referred to as a “mass operation.”
The claim is a subject of some dispute, and there’s been no confirmation from anyone reputable on the status of the airport, except to say that it is in tatters.
The value of the airport is pretty much entirely symbolic at any rate, with the rebels wanting it mostly because it’s the only thing in Donetsk they don’t control, and the military wanting to keep it for the same reason, because it gives them at least one complex that hasn’t been completely lost in the ongoing civil war.