Hyperboles aside, the people of this quiet provincial town of tree-lined streets and low-rise buildings dating back to the Russian empire managed to fight off Russian troops in the critical opening days of the war, preventing Russian forces from capturing strategic bases that could have allowed the nation’s capital, Kyiv, to be encircled.

Vasylkiv — home to an aviation school that has trained generations of pilots, a counterterrorism task force and an air defense command center that protects the capital and central Ukraine — became one of the first targets of a Russian attack in the first hours and days of the war. Cruise missiles slammed into the air base, and then Russian airborne forces attacked in a series of ground assaults.

They did not prevail. Accounts from residents, government officials, armed forces personnel and civilians who have enlisted territorial defense units described how Ukraine rebuffed the Russian assault and helped prevent Russia’s wider aims to seize control of the country.