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Описание: The Antonov An-225 Mriya was the largest aircraft ever built. Six stories tall. Thirty-two wheels. Heavier empty than a fully loaded Boeing 747. Its name meant "dream" in Ukrainian — and for 33 years, it carried cargo no other plane on Earth could lift.

Then, on the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was destroyed in its own hangar at Hostomel airfield.

This is the full story of the Antonov Mriya. From its secret Soviet origins in 1984 — when it was built to carry the Buran space shuttle across a collapsing empire — to its abandonment after the USSR fell, its second life as a commercial cargo giant in the 2000s, its unexpected role as a global humanitarian hero during the COVID-19 pandemic, and its final destruction at the Battle of Hostomel on February 24, 2022.

We trace why the An-225 was built, why nothing else on Earth could replace it, why Russia made killing it a priority target on day one of the war, and what happens now to the unfinished second airframe still sitting in Kyiv.

Some machines outlive their purpose. The Mriya outlived its country.