In the first weeks after Kabul fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, a coalition of nations conducted a colossal, if often haphazard, airlift to extract tens of thousands Afghans suddenly in grave danger because of their work for foreign governments or Afghan security services. But without the U.S. security blanket — the last American C-17 cargo planes left at the end of August — few countries have been willing to hazard their planes and their people to continue evacuations, leaving thousands of at-risk Afghans with few options for escape.

Enter Ukraine, a small but battle-hardened nation after years of war with Russian-backed separatists. After Kabul fell, Ukraine’s giant Ilyushin military planes were among the first to arrive to help with the evacuation. At one point, a group of Ukrainian G.U.R. officers left the security of the airport and, firing their rifles into the air, cleared a path for a pair of buses transporting journalists to safety.

Michael Schwirtz, A Nervy Trip to Kabul: How Ukraine Negotiated With the Taliban and Rescued 96 Afghans, New York Times

I love this story, especially because all of this unfolded just a few months before the Russian invasion.

I strongly recommend reading the whole article if you have a New York Times subscription–given everything that was thrown at the Ukrainians, it’s amazing that this evacuation happened at all.