Place:Slovyansk, Slovyansk, Donetsk, Ukraine

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Sloviansk ( ; or ; prior to 1784 – Tor) is a city in the Kramatorsk district of the Donetsk region of Ukraine , the administrative center of the Slovyansk urban community . The city lies in the north of the region, in the valley of the Kazennyi Torets river. As of July 2022 , the population of the city was around 24,000.

Sloviansk was one of the focal points in the early stages of the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine as it was the first city to be seized by Russia-backed military troops. It was retaken by Ukrainian forces in July 2014. Sloviansk has a population of .

On 4 July 2022, The Guardian reported that, after the fall of the Luhansk oblast, Russian invasion troops would continue their invasion into the adjacent Donetsk oblast to attack the cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut.

History

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The history of Sloviansk dates back to 1645 when Russian Tsar Alexei Romanov founded a border fortress named Tor against the Crimean attacks and slave raids on the southern suburbs of modern Ukraine and Russia. In 1664, a first salt plant for the extraction of salt was built, and workers settled in the area.

In 1676, a fortress named Tor was built at the confluence of the Kazenyy Torets and Sukhyy Torets River, where they form the Torets River, a tributary of Donets River. Shortly thereafter, the town of Tor grew up next to the fortress.^[1]

As several salt lakes were located close by, the town became a producer of salt. During the sixteenth century, salt production was the principal local industry. During the eighteenth century, it became unprofitable and salt production ceased in 1782.

In 1784, the city was renamed Sloviansk. It became a part of the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire in 1797. A resort was established on the shores of Lake Ropne in 1832.

In April 1918, troops loyal to the Ukrainian People's Republic took control of Sloviansk.

The city was occupied by the Germans on 28 October 1941. In December 1941, the SS Einsatzkommando 4b executed more than a thousand Jews who lived in Sloviansk. The Red Army temporarily expelled the Nazi occupiers on 17 February 1943. Germans retook it on 1 March 1943. The Red Army retook Sloviansk on 6 September 1943.

2014 clashes

On 12 April 2014, during the ongoing crisis following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, masked men in army fatigues and bulletproof vests armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles captured the executive committee building, the police department, and the SBU office in Sloviansk. Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov described the gunmen as "terrorists" and vowed to use the Ukrainian special forces to retake the building.

On 13 April 2014, there were reports of fighting between the gunmen and Ukrainian troops, with casualties on both sides. The BBC's David Stern described the pro-Russian forces as carrying Russian weapons and resembling the soldiers that took over Crimean installations at the start of the 2014 Crimean crisis.^[2]

On 29 May 2014, a helicopter carrying fourteen army soldiers, including General Serhiy Kulchytskiy – the head of combat and special training for Ukraine's National Guard, crashed after being shot down by militants near Sloviansk. Ukraine's outgoing President Olexander Turchynov described the downing as a "terrorist attack," and blamed pro-Russian militants.

Sloviansk was held by Russian-backed separatists until 5 July 2014. When pressed by the Ukrainian army they retreated from Sloviansk and pulled back to Donetsk city.

In 2015, a plaque to the memory of Volodymyr Rybak was placed in the town center.

2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine

During the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine, Sloviansk is a pivotal city on the eastern front, as part of a second phase of the war, following the Russian retreat from Kyiv. Russian forces seized the strategic town of Izyum and used it as a staging post to attack Slovyansk, to the south. The town of Slovyansk is thought to be critical to Moscow’s objective of capturing all of eastern Ukraine due to its west-central location in the Donbas "pocket" of remaining Ukrainian forces. On 4 July, The Guardian reported that after the fall of the Luhansk oblast, that Russian invasion troops would continue their invasion into the adjacent Donetsk oblast to attack the cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut.

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