A glider man in Siberia

Antonov was born not in Kyiv but in Novosibirsk. On 31 May 1946 the Soviet state set up Research and Design Bureau No. 153 — OKB-153 — at an aircraft plant in Siberia and put Oleg Antonov in charge. He was already a legend among glider pilots. In the 1930s, as chief designer of the Moscow Glider Factory, he had overseen output of up to 8,000 gliders a year; in the war his A-7 gliders flew supplies to partisans behind German lines, and he even drew up the A-40, a winged contraption meant to let a tank glide into battle. It never worked. But the instinct for big, simple, rugged machines stayed with him.

The biplane that would not die

The bureau’s first aircraft flew on 31 August 1947 and has arguably never stopped. The An-2 is a single-engine biplane, a deliberate throwback in the jet age, and that was the point. It could crop-spray, drop parachutists, fight forest fires and carry the post into places with no runway at all. Its stall speed is so low, about 50 km/h, that in a strong headwind it can fly backwards relative to the ground while still under control. More than 18,000 were built in the Soviet Union, Poland and China, Poland’s PZL Mielec alone turning out over 13,000. North Korea still keeps them to slip special forces across borders at low level.

Freighters for an empire

In 1952 the bureau moved to Kyiv, and the city became its home for good. From there came the workhorses that kept the Soviet bloc moving: the An-12 four-engine military freighter (1,248 built), the An-24 regional turboprop (more than 1,367), and its rear-loading cousin, the An-26 (1,403). In 1965 Antonov stunned the Paris Air Show with the An-22 Antei, a contra-rotating turboprop giant that went on to set 41 world records and still claims the largest cargo deck of any turboprop. China copied the An-12 as the Shaanxi Y-8 and the An-24 as the Xian Y-7, so the bloodline runs on in Chinese service to this day.

Mriya: the Dream

Then Antonov went big. The An-124 Ruslan first flew on 24 December 1982 and became the largest military transport in service, built at Kyiv and at Ulyanovsk in Russia; 57 were completed. In 1987 one flew about 20,151 km non-stop in 25.5 hours. Its stretched, six-engine derivative was built for a single job: carrying the Buran space shuttle on its back. The An-225 Mriya — Ukrainian for dream — first flew on 21 December 1988. Only one ever flew. It set 240 world records, lifted 253.82 tonnes in 2001 and in 2009 carried a single generator weighing 189,980 kg, the heaviest single item ever airlifted.

Cut loose from Moscow

The Soviet collapse left Antonov in a newly independent Ukraine, owning designs whose suppliers and biggest customers were in Russia. The Mriya sat mothballed from 1994 until it was revived for commercial work, flying its first paying charter on 3 January 2002 for Antonov Airlines, the outsize-cargo carrier the company founded in 1989. The An-148 regional jet of 2004 was even built under licence in Voronezh. But after 2014 Ukraine and Russia severed defence ties, and Antonov, heavily dependent on Russian parts and expertise, saw output collapse to a handful of airliners a year. In 2015 the state folded the bureau into the defence conglomerate Ukroboronprom.

Hostomel, February 2022

On the first morning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, 24 February 2022, Russian airborne troops assaulted Hostomel, the company’s own airfield outside Kyiv. Five An-124s had flown out to Leipzig; the Mriya had not. On 27 February Ukroboronprom announced that the invaders had destroyed the flagship of Ukrainian aviation. An An-26 and an An-74 also burned, and an An-12, An-22, An-28, An-132D and An-124 were badly damaged. Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba answered that Russia might have destroyed the Mriya but never the dream. In April 2023 investigators named former chief executive Serhiy Bychkov a suspect, alleging negligence over the loss.

From giants to drones

The bureau that once measured success in tonnes now measures it in kilometres. In 2022 Antonov developed the An-196 Liutyi, a one-way attack drone with a reported range of 1,000 to 2,000 km, and Ukraine has since flown it against refineries and airfields deep inside Russia. Russia has hit back: on the night of 11–12 April 2025 drones struck the largest hangar at the Sviatoshyn plant. Meanwhile the partly built second An-225 airframe survived the war in its hangar, and Antonov has costed completing it at around 500 million dollars. In July 2025 a modernised An-124 flew out of Kyiv. Antonov is wounded, but it is still flying.

Factories

• Antonov Serial Production Plant (former Aviant) · Sviatoshyn airfield, Kyiv — Founded 1920 as State Aircraft Plant 12; built 3,320 An-2, 1,028 An-24 and 1,402 An-26; merged into Antonov in 2010; struck by Russian drones in April 2025
• Antonov Airport · Hostomel, Kyiv region — Flight-test and Antonov Airlines base; scene of the February 2022 battle in which the An-225 was destroyed
• Kharkiv Aviation Factory · Kharkiv — Part of the Antonov production network

People

• Oleg Antonov · founder and general designer, 1946–1984 — Born 1906 near Moscow; glider pioneer; Lenin Prize 1962, Hero of Socialist Labour 1966; died in Kyiv in 1984
• Petro Balabuiev · general designer, 1984–2005 — Led the bureau through the An-124 and An-225 era and Ukrainian independence
• Dmytro Kiva · general designer, 2005–2016
• Serhiy Bychkov · former chief executive — Named a suspect in April 2023 over alleged negligence in the loss of the Mriya

Records and firsts

• An-225 Mriya: largest aircraft ever flown, 240 world records
• An-225: heaviest payload, 253.82 tonnes, 11 September 2001
• An-225: heaviest single item airlifted, a 189,980 kg generator, August 2009
• An-124: about 20,151 km non-stop in 25.5 hours, May 1987
• An-22: 41 world records for speed, payload and payload-to-altitude
• An-2: 45-year production run, for a time the longest of any aircraft