A military airfield in Belbek, a village near Sevastopol, Crimea, was also used for civil aviation, named Sevastopol International Airport Belbek[citation needed][a] (IATA: UKS, ICAO: UKFB), for six years from 2002 to 2007 under Ukrainian administration.

In 2017, plans were published under Russian administration to restore the airfield into an international airport by 2020, but this did not happen.

The airfield is located next to the coast, in the Nakhimovsky area of Sevastopol, north of the city center, close to the adjacent neighborhood Lyubimovka.

The Belbek airfield was built as an operational airfield in 1938 - in the summer of that year, the 3rd and 4th aviation squadrons of the 32nd Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Black Sea Fleet Air Force landed on it for the first time on I-15bis aircraft.

The TB-3 carrier bomber, in theory, delivered to the target the attached I-16 fighters, on which bombs were suspended.

On 28 February 2014, Ukraine's acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that the airport had been blocked by Russian Military personnel, and unidentified armed men were patrolling the area.

[4][5] 11 March 2014, a website was established[6] by the military personnel to report directly on current and former events in the airfield.

[7][better source needed] The 204th Tactical Aviation Brigade had been deployed in Belbek since December 2007 in the military area number A4515 (воинская часть A-4515).

[9] The 23rd Fighter Aviation Regiment (23 IAP) from Dzyomgi Airport of the Russian Air Force were deployed here from April 2022 flying the Sukhoi Su-35S.