military airfield An air base (sometimes referred to as a military air base, military airfield, military airport, air station, naval air station, air force station, or air force base) is an aerodrome used as a military base by a military force for the operation ...

Belbek Belbek ( uk, Бельбек; detatarized name: uk, Фруктове, Fruktove; russian: Фруктовое) is a village in Crimea. It is home to Sevastopol International Airport A military airfield in Belbek, a village near Sevastopol, C ...

, a village near

Sevastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

, was also used for

civil aviation Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military and non-state aviation, both private and commercial. Most of the countries in the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization and work ...

, named Sevastopol International Airport Belbek, uk, Міжнародний аеропорт Севастополь "Бельбек", russian: Аэропорт Бельбек , for six years from 2002 to 2007 under Ukrainian administration. Since 2014, following the start of the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatist forces in Donbas, Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since Feb ...

and the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the base has been operated by the

Russian Ministry of Defence The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (russian: Министерство обороны Российской Федерации, Минобороны России, informally abbreviated as МО, МО РФ or Minoboron) is the govern ...

. In 2017 plans were published under Russian administration to restore the airfield into an

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...

by 2020, but this did not happen. The base is home to the 38th Fighter Aviation Regiment which flies the

Sukhoi Su-27 The Sukhoi Su-27 (russian: Сухой Су-27; NATO reporting name: Flanker) is a Soviet-origin twin-engine supermaneuverable fighter aircraft designed by Sukhoi. It was intended as a direct competitor for the large US fourth-generation jet ...

and

Sukhoi Su-30 The Sukhoi Su-30 (russian: Сухой Су-30; NATO reporting name: Flanker-C/G/H) is a twin-engine, two-seat supermaneuverable fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union by Russia's Sukhoi Aviation Corporation. It is a multirole fighte ...

under the 27th Composite Aviation Division part of the

4th Air and Air Defence Forces Army The 4th Air and Air Defence Forces Army () is an air army of the Russian Air Force, part of the Southern Military District and headquartered in Rostov-on-Don. The 4th Air Army (''4 Vozdushnaya Armiya'') was a Soviet Air Force formation and f ...

History

Military airfield since 1941

The airfield is located next to the coast, in the Nakhimovsky area of Sevastopol, north of the city center, close to the adjacent neighborhood Lyubimovka. The airfield was first constructed by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in June 1941, during the third year of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Initially it housed a military fighter aviation unit. Constructed without a hardened runway, a concrete runway was constructed after the war. During the second half of the 1980s, after

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

came to power, the Soviet airfield was significantly increased and improved, as the airfield was to be used by him when travelling to the presidential

dacha A dacha ( rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ') or shack serving as a family's main or only home, or an outbu ...

on the southern coast of the

, near the cape of Foros. The name of the airport comes from the Belbek river, in the south-west of Crimea. After

Ukrainian independence Ukraine emerged as the concept of a nation, and the Ukrainians as a nationality, with the Ukrainian National Revival which began in the late 18th and early 19th century. The first wave of national revival is traditionally connected with the publ ...

in 1991 the airfield was under Ukrainian military control, with concomitant use as a civilian airport for a few years. After Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, the Sevastopol transportation authorities said that Belbek airport was used for civilian charter flights from Ukraine and Russia.

2002–2007: International airport

From July 2002, the airfield began to be used for civil aviation. In December 2002, the airport received a license for international flights. Between 2002 and 2007 over 2,500 flights were carried out, which transported about 25,000 passengers. During 2007, civil flights were suspended again. In spring 2009 it was announced that resumption of air links was to commence in the near future, but this did not happen. Ukrainian military use of the airfield as a fighter airbase continued alongside its civilian use. In 1996 the Su-15TM aircraft based there were replaced by the

Su-27 The Sukhoi Su-27 (russian: Сухой Су-27; NATO reporting name: Flanker) is a Soviet-origin twin-engine supermaneuverable fighter aircraft designed by Sukhoi. It was intended as a direct competitor for the large US fourth-generation jet ...

, and until 2014 the 204th Tactical Aviation Brigade flying the

MiG-29 The Mikoyan MiG-29 (russian: Микоян МиГ-29; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) is a twin-engine fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union. Developed by the Mikoyan design bureau as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s, the Mi ...

was based there.

Russian military control

On 28 February 2014, Ukraine's acting Interior Minister

Arsen Avakov Arsen Borysovych Avakov hy, Արսեն Բորիսի Ավակով (born 2 January 1964) is a Ukrainian politician and businessman. From 2014 to 2021 he was Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, first being appointed in the first cabinet of ...

said that that the airport had been blocked by

Russian Military The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (, ), commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military forces of Russia. In terms of active-duty personnel, they are the world's fifth-largest military force, with at least two m ...

personnel, and unidentified armed men were patrolling the area. He said through his

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account that, "I can only describe this as a military invasion and occupation". Neither the

Russian Foreign Ministry The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (MFA Russia; russian: Министерство иностранных дел Российской Федерации, МИД РФ) is the central government institution charged with lea ...

nor the

Russian defense ministry The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (russian: Министерство обороны Российской Федерации, Минобороны России, informally abbreviated as МО, МО РФ or Minoboron) is the govern ...

responded to requests for comment. 11 March 2014, a website was established> by the military personnel to report directly on current and former events in the airfield. According to the website, there had been a fire at the airfield in military area (воинская часть,

Military Unit Number A Military Unit Number (Russian: Войсковая часть) is a numeric alternate designation for military units in the armed forces and Internal Troops, internal troops of post-Soviet states, originally used by those of the Soviet Union. Fo ...

, А-4515) where electrical equipment was stored, with some unknown soldiers guarding it. The site was updated several times, and discontinued in 2016. 14 March 2014, Ukrainian Colonel Yuliy Mamchur made an appeal on YouTube to the Ukraine government, requesting written orders to all the Ukrainian troops on the Crimean peninsula. If he did not receive the orders, he said that the 204th tactical brigade was going to fight, even if facing likely defeat. The 204th tactical brigade had been deployed in Belbek since December 2007 in the military area number A4515 (воинская часть A-4515). After 2014, a 38th fighter regiment of the Russian 27th Mixed Aviation Division, flying Su-27s and Su-30s, was established at Belbek, but relocated to Russia after explosions in August 2022. The

23rd Fighter Aviation Regiment Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * Hig ...

(23 IAP) from

Dzyomgi Airport Dzyomgi Airport (russian: Аэропорт Дзёмги) is an air base in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia located northeast of Komsomolsk-na-Amure. Dzyomgi is Komsomolsk-na-Amure's northeast side airport, handling small airliner traffic. The base is h ...

of the

Russian Air Force " Air March" , mascot = , anniversaries = 12 August , equipment = , equipment_label = , battles = , decorations = , bat ...

were deployed here from April 2022 flying the

Sukhoi Su-35 The Sukhoi Su-35 (russian: link=no, Сухой Су-35; NATO reporting name: Flanker-E) is the designation for two improved derivatives of the Su-27 air-defence fighter. They are single-seat, twin-engine, supermaneuverable aircraft, design ...

S. On 1 Oct 2022 an explosion was reported which Russian news agency

TASS The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...

reported as due to an aircraft which ran off the runway while landing, without damaging the airfield.

Renovation plans

In January 2017, the company managing the airport presented public plans to open a new temporary terminal with a capacity of 300,000 - 400,000 passengers by 2018, with a full-size terminal to follow by 2019 or 2020. In the event, the plans were not carried out.

Airlines and destinations

As of 2015, there were no scheduled flights to or from the airport.Sevastopol airport must be opened by 2017 - Russia
/ref>

References

Notes

{{authority control Airports in Sevastopol Airports built in the Soviet Union Soviet Air Force bases Buildings and structures in Sevastopol