The fighting lasted through most of the night and into the early hours of the morning as the NATO Forces opened a fairly wide hole in the Russian lines. The Ukrainian units that were trapped with NATO were fighting with everything in them to try and roll up the Russian positions, giving the rest of NATO more time to get their soldiers out of the city. The NATO tank units were doing their best to support the Ukrainians and give their forces as much time as possible to get out as well.
Just prior to the breakout, General Fenzol had contacted Lieutenant General (LTG) Isaac Zotti, the Commander of Three Corps and the NATO Ground Commander near Novohrad-Volynskyi. He had informed LTG Zotti of their plan to break out of the city and requested as much air support as he could possibly get. In response, the NATO Ground Commander told General Fenzol that if he could get his force to the city of Kmytiv, roughly 110 kilometers west of Kiev, they would try to get him additional reinforcements, supplies and medivacs.
While NATO and Russian aircraft battled over the skies of Kiev and the surrounding area, roughly 80 Blackhawks, Chinooks, and British Puma helicopters began to head towards the city of Kmytiv and the city of Zhytomyr. Once the area had been secured, the Air Force would send in a few dozen C-130 cargo aircraft to drop in fuel, munitions, and other supplies Fenzol had requested. General Zotti was under no illusions; he realized that this was purely a rescue effort, not an attempt to grab and hold this city from the Russians. He estimated the Russians would launch a massive counterattack against Kiev and try to encircle General Fenzol’s meager force once again. They needed to get munitions and fuel to his force ASAP and hope they could keep on the move long enough to get back to the NATO lines.
Major Dale Young (call sign “Honey Badger”) was cruising along at 650 knots with his wingman, Captain Jorge Montoya (call sign “Iceman”) looking for targets. Below them were 80+ NATO helicopters and close to 30 C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft, all vigorously carrying out a daring rescue operation. The past several hours had been absolute chaos as their fighter squadron scrambled to get airborne and support this last-minute operation.
“I have no idea who drew this operation up, but it’s clear that it’s being done by the seat of their pants,” Major Young lamented to himself.
Their Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) support aircraft buzzed through on the satellite link. “Raptor 66, this is Looking Glass. We are tracking 10 MiGs heading towards your location from Rostov-on-Don. Their altitude is roughly 100 meters, moving at 680 knots. How copy, over?”
“This is Raptor 66. We copy. Send the targeting data. We are going to descend to 5,000 feet and will engage the MiGs shortly,” Major Young said calmly as he led his wingman down through the cloud cover on their attack. They were three minutes away from being within weapons’ range, and they needed to lose a lot of altitude if they were going to get in position.
Young and his wingman descended quickly, lining up for their attack. They needed to intercept these MiGs before they got in range of the helicopter force. Above Raptor 66, another flight of four F-15s was swooping in to help support them. It was a risky move for the U.S. to vector in those F-15s; NATO had already lost 29 aircraft from Russian surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in the area. Unfortunately, the F-16s performing the Wild Weasel missions had been getting hammered hard trying to suppress the SAMs.
“Iceman, I only have three missiles left,” Major Young explained to his wingman. “I want you to fire your remaining missiles at the same time that I do. Then we’ll head back to base, rearm, and get back on station again. How copy?”
“Copy that, Honey Badger. Between my four missiles, and your three, we’ll hopefully scare these guys off from their attack,” Captain Montoya replied.
“I wish the rest of our squadron hadn’t gotten re-routed to head to Kiev,” Major Young thought. “If only these Russian Su-25 ground attack aircraft hadn’t started mauling the Ukrainian armored vehicles along the E-40 highway.”
As they descended to 5,000 feet, their AWACs sent them the targeting data they needed for their missiles. Major Young had missile lock with all three missiles, and quickly depressed the firing button three separate times. In rapid succession, each missile dropped from his internal missile bay and began to streak towards the incoming MiGs. Major Young and his wingman banked hard to their left and headed in the direction of Kiev.
They watched briefly as their missiles shot across the sky towards the Russian MiGs. Once the enemy aircraft detected the missiles, they began to take evasive maneuvers, trying their best to survive. Four of their seven missiles struck the MiGs dead on, exploding the aircraft in glorious balls of fire. Three of the missiles exploded without connecting to their targets; the evasive maneuvers had been successful for a few of the Russian aircraft. Now it was up to the F-15s to finish off the remaining six MiGs.
As they leveled out over the E-40 highway, their radar display began to show a series of SAMs firing at the F-15s. Major Young watched in horror as he counted twelve missiles from at least two SA-21 missile batteries streaking across the sky to destroy the F-15s that had been sent to help them.
“My God, I wish I had known there was an SA-21 in the area,” Major Young lamented to himself. “My F-22 is largely invisible to radar though, so it’s not like we’ve been shot at or painted by the SAMs… I would have warned them! Ugh, the Russian SA-21s have been wreaking havoc on our ability to secure air supremacy over Ukraine since the start of this war…”
Breaking his train of thought, his wingman’s voice came over the radio. “Where are we going, Honey Badger? The base is in the other direction,” his wingman said jokingly.
“I know, I just want to head up the E-40 for a little bit and see if we can spot the convoy we are providing air support for,” he replied to his wingman’s question.
As they flew along the highway, they eventually spotted the ragtag group that had busted their way out of Kiev. The convoy stretched for miles as nearly any vehicle that could drive and carry soldiers was on the road. It was a mix of military vehicles, busses, taxis and civilian vehicles. Towards the end of the convoy, they saw dozens upon dozens of pyres of black smoke rising into the sky. It looked like the images he had seen as a child of the so-called “Highway of Death” in Kuwait.
During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the US Air Force had caught a couple of Iraqi divisions fleeing Kuwait to Iraq, and had wasted no time in sending nearly everything they could to wipe them out. After the attack, the highway had been renamed “The Highway of Death” for all the burned-out vehicles and charred bodies strewn across the road. It was a gruesome sight. It looked like the Russians had delivered their own version on the E-40.
“Geez-I wonder how many people we lost during this air raid?” Major Young wondered. “I wish we would have been able to prevent this.”
Helpless, Honey Badger turned his aircraft around and began to head towards home. He began to add altitude, bringing their aircraft up to roughly 20,000 feet, their optimal cruising altitude, they steadily made their way back to the NATO airbase in western Poland they were now flying out of.