The first flashpoint of Russia’s hybrid war in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, and one of the first Ukrainian cities to be occupied and then liberated back in 2014, Sloviansk today finds itself once again under threat from the Kremlin’s armies.
Arguably, the Russo-Ukrainian war really started in Sloviansk in April 2014. By then, the Kremlin's forces had already taken over Crimea. Ukraine, then in the throes of political upheaval following the ouster of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, was unable to resist.
Some of the same Russian agents who had taken part in the Crimea operation then headed to eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. One of them, Igor Girkin, led the commando unit that took over Sloviansk, a city of about 110,000 some 95km north of Donetsk.
Recruiting locals to their cause, the Russians framed the events as a popular uprising to create separatist "People’s Republics" in the two administrative regions that make up the Donbas: Donetsk and Luhansk. Those who supported them were encouraged to expect that Russia would swiftly annex the territories, as it had Crimea.
It didn’t work out like that – not least because in the Donbas, Kyiv fought back. With its dilapidated army reinforced by volunteer battalions, many of whose members had fought the police in Kyiv during that winter of protests, Ukraine gradually gained the upper hand and surrounded Sloviansk. The fighting sent residents temporarily fleeing and deprived the city of water and electricity for some time.
After three months Ukraine had forced the Russian side out of Sloviansk and other cities north of Donetsk.
Ukrainian forces' advance would be stalled by the autumn, as Russia sent in regular troops and used cross-border artillery fire to bolster the rag-tag "armies" of its puppet "separatist republics", which remained in control of much of the region but were not officially recognised by Moscow until February 2022. At that point, recognition was used as a pretext for a full-scale invasion, one of whose stated goals is to take over the whole of the Donbas by military means.
Sloviansk thus finds itself once again in Russia's sights, fearful that it could soon face the same fate as other cities in the region like Mariupol and Bakhmut, all but razed to the ground by Russia's onslaught.
