The Battle of Donbas was a military offensive that was part of the wider eastern front of the Russo-Ukrainian war. The offensive began on 18 April 2022 between the armed forces of Russia and Ukraine for control of the Donbas region. Military analysts consider the campaign to have been the second strategic phase of the invasion, after Russia's initial three-pronged attack into Ukraine.
Russia's strategy in the sector was to encircle Ukrainian troops in the Donbas and to annexe the entire Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts to the Russian-backed separatist states of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). Russia claimed to have controlled 55% of Donetsk Oblast by 23 June 2022 and all of Luhansk Oblast by 3 July 2022, with Russian and separatist forces controlling the cities of Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk, Rubizhne, and many others.
The Russian offensive stalled in September 2022 and some of the gains were reversed after Ukraine launched its Kharkiv offensive, with Ukrainian forces recapturing the cities of Lyman and Sviatohirsk in the Donetsk region and Bilohorivka in Luhansk oblast. The Ukrainian counteroffensive also stalled east of the Oskil river, and by November 2022 Russian assaults renewed in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.
Background
War in Donbas
Since 2014, the Donbas region had been the site of protracted fighting between Russian-backed separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics and the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the war in Donbas. Between 2014 and late 2021, the war had taken the lives of more than 10,000 combatants (including Ukrainian soldiers, Russian soldiers, and separatist combatants), as well as 3,095 civilians.
Prior operations
In February 2022, mass evacuations and general mobilisation began in the DPR and LPR quasi-states following aggravations along the "line of contact", the front line which had more or less remained static since 2014. On 21 February 2022, Russia officially recognised the DPR and LPR as sovereign states.
On 24 February 2022, the Russian Armed Forces and the DPR and LPR launched a full-scale invasion of Ukrainian territory across numerous fronts, including in the Donbas. North of the Donbas, Russian and loyalist forces began fighting in the battle of Kharkiv, as well as numerous other smaller battles aimed at capturing key Ukrainian cities and towns. In southern Donbas, the siege of Mariupol began, which would eventually kill over 25,000 civilians and destroy 95% of the city.
On 25 March, Russian officials declared that the first phase of their military operation in Ukraine was complete, announcing that its main objectives had "generally been accomplished." Sergei Rudskoi, head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, claimed that the combat potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces had been "considerably reduced," which would make it possible for Russian forces to focus their efforts on their main goal, the "liberation" of the Donbas region. A diplomatic official in Moscow described the announcement to Reuters as a "face-saving move," arguing that Russia had launched the war with much more ambitious aims than just the Donbas.
On 29 March 2022, Russian officials declared that they intended to scale back their military operations in the region around the capital city of Kyiv. This effectively ended Russian operations in northern Ukraine. Russian military officials declared that the Ukrainian Navy and Air Force had been neutralised. They also stated that the DPR and LPR controlled 54% and 93% of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, respectively. The tactical withdrawal of Russian forces from the north was completed by 6 April 2022.
Russian forces captured Izium, a strategic city in eastern Kharkiv Oblast, on 1 April. After taking Izium, Russian troops then advanced south towards Kamianka, Izium Raion, which lies on the road to the strategically positioned city of Sloviansk. On 6 April, an Izium government official told CNN that intercepted radio communications revealed Russian plans "to capture the Donetsk region from the north". The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) predicted that "efforts by Russian forces advancing south from Izium to capture Sloviansk" would become "the next pivotal battle of the war in Ukraine", with the 1st Guards Tank Army having been redeployed to this direction from the Kharkiv and Sumy fronts.
Prelude
In mid-April 2022, US intelligence reported that Russia was "repositioning" its military units to the Donbas. Russian units from northern Ukraine battlefronts in Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, and elsewhere were noted by Maxar satellite imagery to be relocating to the Donbas region, while reinforcements from regions in Belarus and Russia supplemented these units. By 13 April, military analysts expected Russia to imminently launch a "battle for Donbas" as new reinforcements arrived from Russia, Belarus, and northern Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov acknowledged the beginning of a new offensive in Donbas, claiming it to be a "very important moment in this entire special operation." To address the new stage of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron and US president Joe Biden held a meeting with representatives from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Poland, and Romania. They were joined by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel.
Russian objectives
On 22 April 2022, a commander of Russia's Central Military District, Rustam Minnekayev, declared that the aim of the "second phase" of the country's invasion of Ukraine was to fully seize Donbas and Southern Ukraine and to establish a land corridor with Transnistria, a Russian-occupied, internationally unrecognized breakaway republic that is internationally recognised as part of Moldova. He alleged that there was "evidence that the Russian-speaking population is being oppressed" in Transnistria. The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine replied to this announcement by describing Russia's intentions as imperialism, saying that it contradicted previous Russian claims that assured that Russia did not have territorial ambitions over Ukraine and that Russia had admitted that "the goal of the 'second phase' of the war is not victory over the mythical Nazis, but simply the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine".
In mid-April 2022, Western defence and intelligence officials told Financial Times that Russia's main targets were the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, described as holding the key to control over Donbas. The Russian military was expected to advance on these cities from three directions: south from Izium, west from Sievierodonetsk, and north from the city of Donetsk.
On 30 June 2022, ISW assessed that despite Russia's concentration in the east, they still had territorial ambitions beyond Luhansk and Donetsk Oblast. According to Russian sources, the official representative of the LPR forces, Andrey Marochko, stated on 3 July 2022 that to secure the LPR land, their, DPR and Russian forces must push the Ukrainian forces away from the LPR's borders for no less than 300 kilometres. The 300 km claim would mean the full Kharkiv Oblast and Donetsk region, parts of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Sumy Oblast and Poltava Oblast. Russian sources said that the LPR's ambassador in Russia, Rodion Miroshnik, confirmed on 4 July 2022 that LPR troops would continue to participate in the Donbas offensive, saying the presence of Ukrainian units along the LPR's borders would threaten security.
Opposing forces and foreign involvement
Russian and pro-Russian forces
On 18 April, a US Department of Defense official said Russia had deployed an additional 11 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) days before launching the offensive, resulting in a total of 76 BTGs operating in both Donbas and southeastern Ukraine. An estimated 12 BTGs were engaged in the siege of Mariupol. According to The Guardian, the 76 battalion tactical groups constituted approximately 60,000 soldiers, which was about three-fourths of the manpower of the invasion force. However, the Ukrainian General Staff said on the same day that there were 87 Russian BTGs across Ukraine with a total of 70,000 soldiers.
A senior US defence official said that two more Russian battalion tactical groups were deployed between 18 and 19 April, for a total of 78 BTGs across southern and eastern Ukraine. AP News estimated that Russia had 55,000–62,000 troops in Ukraine, based on an earlier Pentagon statement that the typical size of a BTG was 700–800 soldiers.
Western media, citing European officials, reported that 10,000–20,000 Libyan, Syrian, and Wagner Group mercenaries were deployed for the offensive in the Donbas.
British military expert Frank Ledwidge wrote on 12 April that Russian forces were "nowhere near" the three-to-one ratio that attacking forces should number over their opponents, according to what he called "one of the firmest rules of warfare." However, Russian forces achieved a three-to-one numerical superiority over their Ukrainian counterparts by 25 April, according to the BBC and the Financial Times, citing Western experts.
Ukrainian forces
Before the February invasion, 40,000 Ukrainian troops were stationed in the Donbas. Financial Times called those forces, veterans of the Joint Forces Operation, "some of Ukraine's best trained and most battle-hardened soldiers".
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 14 April that Ukrainian forces numbered 44,000 in the Donbas region. On 19 April, the BBC reported that Ukrainian troops in the Donbas numbered 40,000–50,000 men.
Foreign support for Ukraine
The Ukrainians continued a campaign of targeting Russian ammunition depots and logistics sites in Donetsk province with air strikes and, reportedly, US-supplied M142 HIMARS or M270 rocket artillery systems. Video emerged of an apparent ammunition depot in Snizhne, Donetsk Oblast exploding, with pro-Ukrainian sources suggesting Ukrainian forces used M142 HIMARS supplied by the US to attack the depot deep behind Russian-DPR front lines. Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential advisor, claimed that continued attacks on Russian ammunition depots and increased Ukrainian artillery supplies from NATO countries were forcing the Russians to conserve artillery shells and rockets for the first time. He argued that if this trend continued, the Ukrainians would, eventually, achieve artillery and logistical superiority on the battlefield in the Donbas. President Zelenskyy, in his nightly public address, also hailed the impact Western-supplied artillery pieces were reportedly having on Russian logistics and strike capabilities. In late July 2022, Ukrainian soldiers and officers fighting in Donetsk offered anecdotal evidence of a significant reduction in Russian artillery fire.
The Mozart Group, a group of former Western soldiers serving as volunteers in Ukraine, was evacuating civilians and offering informal combat training to Ukrainian troops, primarily on casualty care and medical evacuation.
Battle
Early operations (April–May 2022)
On the night of 18 April 2022, Russian forces launched an intensive bombardment campaign against positions in Luhansk, Donetsk, and Kharkiv Oblasts. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the "battle for Donbas" had begun. Russian artillery pounded cities in the Donbas, aiming at destroying critical infrastructure.
On 18 April, in the Slobozhansky and Donetsk operational districts, Russian troops intensified offensive operations in some areas, attempting to break through the Ukrainian defences along almost the entire front line in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk regions. The head of the Luhansk regional military administration and effective governor of the oblast, Serhiy Haidai, called on the region's residents to evacuate immediately so as to not become hostages or be killed by the Russians.
Popasna
Large areas of Popasna were occupied during the first week of the Battle of Donbas. On 20 April, Libyan and Syrian mercenaries likely associated with the Wagner Group allegedly clashed with Ukrainian forces in Popasna. The Ukrainian government claimed that 20–25 mercenaries had been killed.
In late April, Russian forces were said to be preparing to capture Popasna and advance past it. By 7 May, the now largely destroyed city of Popasna was captured by Russian and Luhansk People's Republic forces, with this being confirmed by the regional governor.
Donetsk Oblast
In the first week of the Battle of Donbas, a Ukrainian official claimed that Russian forces captured 42 villages in the Donetsk Oblast, though she did not specify which villages had been captured. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government stated their forces launched a counterattack and recaptured the town of Marinka. Russian shelling overnight in Donetsk Oblast on 20 April killed two civilians and wounded nine, according to online news sources. Lozove, Kramatorsk Raion, in northern Donetsk Oblast was captured by Russian and LPR forces on 23 April, followed by Yatskivka and Rubtsi on 26 April, and Zarichne on 27 April.