The Washington Post:Ukraine had the world’s biggest plane. Russia’s assault destroyed it.

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© Stringer/Reuters A Ukrainian service member walks in a front of an Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo plane, the world’s biggest aircraft, destroyed by Russian troops amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, at an airfield in Hostomel, Ukraine on April 2, 2022.

Russia has failed in its efforts to take Ukraine’s capital, but the suburbs around Kyiv have been decimated in the assault.

Among the rubble: The remains of the massive Antonov AN-225 airplane — also called Mriya, or “dream” in Ukrainian — which had set a Guinness world record for being the largest aircraft by weight.

Ukrainian troops toured the plane’s charred remains Saturday at Hostomel airport on the outskirts of Kyiv — and positioned themselves at the airport’s entrance in a sign that they were in control, the Associated Press reported.

© Vadim Ghirda/AP A Ukrainian serviceman walks by an Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft destroyed during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the Antonov airport in Hostomel, Ukraine on Saturday, April 2, 2022.

Kyiv’s forces have re-captured territory near the capital as Russian troops pull out of the area as part of an apparent shift in strategy to focus on the country’s south and east.

Russian forces had hoped to use that airfield in their assault on Kyiv, 20 miles to the southeast, and it was captured in the earliest days of the war.

© Vadim Ghirda/AP Ukrainian servicemen shout patriotic slogans backdropped by an Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft destroyed during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the Antonov airport in Hostomel, Ukraine on April 2, 2022.

Mriya, weighing some 705 tons with a wingspan of 290 feet, was reportedly destroyed as Russian forces fought to seize the airport in late February,.

The Russian military held this area for weeks until Ukrainian forces claimed it back.

© Vadim Ghirda/AP A Ukrainian serviceman touches the nose of an Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft destroyed during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces at the Antonov airport in Hostomel, Ukraine on April 2, 2022.

The battle for Kyiv has been brutal, and civilians in the cities around the capital have born much of the brunt of war. As Russian troops retreat from cities and towns they briefly conquered, incoming Ukrainian forces are finding complete devastation from burned-out vehicles to bodies lining streets left behind.

© Stringer/Reuters A man stands next to graves of people whom he buried at a backyard of his house, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the settlement of Hostomel, in Kyiv region, Ukraine on April 2, 2022.

Other planes left the airport when the war began. But the Mriya had been at the airport undergoing maintenance and could not fly out, according to Ukroboronpromm, the Ukrainian company overseeing it. The firm estimated it would take five years and 3 billion dollars to rebuild it — a cost it said Russia should bear.

The Antonov AN-225 was finished shortly before the former Soviet Union’s collapse and was said to be the world’s biggest. The cargo plane was originally built to transport a Soviet space shuttle. In 2009, it was recognized by Guinness World Records for airlifting the heaviest item of any plane: a power plant generator weighing 375,200 pounds.