World’s Largest Cargo Plane Destroyed at Contested Airport Near Kyiv, Ukrainian Government Says

An Antonov AN-225 is pictured while landing at the Oslo Airport, on June 19, 2014, as it carries Norwegian military material from Afghanistan. Heiko Junge/AFP via Getty Images

The Ukrainian government said Sunday that “the world’s largest aircraft” has been destroyed at a strategically important airport outside Kyiv amid a Russian attack.

“This was the world’s largest aircraft, AN-225 ‘Mriya’ (‘Dream’ in Ukrainian),” Ukraine’s’ Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter alongside a photo of the plane. “Russia may have destroyed our ‘Mriya. But they will never be able to destroy our dream of a strong, free and democratic European state. We shall prevail!”