The Antonov airport in Gostomel (near Kiev) is under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the head of the subcommittee for state security and defense of the parliamentary committee for national security, Fedir Venislavskyy (Servants of the People faction), said.

"The Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence has received confirmation that our Armed Forces have recaptured the Antonov airport in the city of Gostomel in the Kiev region from paratroopers. "Fighting continues, but we have taken control of the Gostomel airport to prevent it from being used to expand the paratrooper operation and plans of the Russian Federation," Venislavsky said on the Ukraine-24 television channel Thursday evening.

The press service of Ukraine's Ground Forces reported that Russia is trying to block Kiev with its actions in Gostomel.

"The insidious plan of the Russian invaders is clear. The main purpose of the operation is to block Kiev, creating a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula and the self-proclaimed PMR. For this purpose, an airborne tactical landing force has been landed: up to 200 Russian soldiers at the Gostomel airfield. Another aim of the hijacker is to damage critical civilian infrastructure, on which missile and aviation strikes are regularly carried out," reads the message released on Facebook.

In turn, Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, said that the Ukrainian military in helicopters covered Gostomel airfield with fire, after which they landed and cleared it of the enemy.

"Russian paratroopers who survived scattered to the surrounding forests and fields," Gerashchenko concluded.