The siege of Sloviansk was conducted by Ukraine between 12 April 2014 and 5 July 2014. It began when Sloviansk was seized by the fifty-strong unit of heavily armed Russian militants led by Russian citizen Igor Girkin. Following three months of heavy fighting between the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the separatist and Russian forces, the Ukrainian government retook the city as the pro-Russia rebels retreated to Donetsk. The engagement in Sloviansk marked the first military engagement of the War in Donbas.
On 12 April 2014, as unrest grew in eastern Ukraine following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, masked men in fatigues, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, took over the town and began to fortify it. They claimed to be local fighters of the Donetsk People's Republic, but were actually Russian Armed Forces 'volunteers' under the command of Russian GRU colonel Igor Girkin ('Strelkov'). In response, the Ukrainian Yatsenyuk Government created the first Anti-Terrorist Operations zone (ATO) and launched a series of counter-offensives against the insurgents, resulting in a standoff and violent skirmishes. Girkin later acknowledged that his men's seizure of Sloviansk sparked what would become the Donbas War.
As tensions in the city increased, the insurgents began to take journalists and others captive, instigating a hostage crisis. The Security Service of Ukraine said on 18 April that "Sloviansk remains the hottest point in the region." On 20 April, Right Sector was ordered by acting President Oleksandr Turchinov to sabotage an insurgent-controlled television tower, leading to the first combat fatalities. By June, roughly 40% of the city's population had fled. On 5 July, after the insurgents had retreated to Donetsk City, Ukrainian authorities retook control of the city.
History
Seizure of government buildings
On 12 April, a fifty-strong unit of heavily armed Russian militants captured Sloviansk's administration building, police station, and Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) building, and set up roadblocks with the help of local armed activists. The unit were Russian Armed Forces 'volunteers' under the command of Russian GRU colonel Igor Girkin ('Strelkov'). They had been sent from Russian-occupied Crimea and wore no insignia. According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, gunmen fired indiscriminately on the administration building. Raiding the police armoury, the militants seized at least 400 handguns and 20 automatic weapons. "The aim of the takeover was the guns," a Ukrainian police statement said. "They are giving these guns to participants in the protest in Sloviansk.". After takeover of the city by militants, Sloviansk mayor Nelya Shtepa briefly appeared at an occupied police station and expressed support for the militants. Others gathered outside the building and similarly voiced their support. They told Ukrainian journalists who were reporting on the situation to "go back to Kyiv". Nelya Shtepa was later arrested by the insurgents, and replaced by the self-proclaimed "people's mayor" Vyacheslav Ponomarev.
Girkin said that this action sparked the Donbas War. He said "I'm the one who pulled the trigger of war. If our unit hadn't crossed the border, everything would have fizzled out, like in Kharkiv, like in Odessa". He explained that "nobody there wanted to fight" until his unit seized Sloviansk.
Government response
The following morning the Ukrainian government announced a counter-terrorism operation in the city. An ultimatum was given for the separatists to disarm and surrender to authorities within 48 hours.
Police began the operation by clearing a highway checkpoint controlled by separatists. A group of insurgents exited their vehicle and opened fire on the Ukrainian police, killing two SBU officers and injuring several Ukrainian military personnel. One separatist was also killed in the shootout, while the remainder fled into the woods. The car the gunmen were in had a Poltava Oblast license plate, which was traced to the private security firm Yavir. In an unrelated shootout in the city itself, two people were shot dead by an assailant in plainclothes, and another was wounded.
By the next day Sloviansk was reported to be under pro-Russian control, with more important government buildings and other areas taken by the militants. The Ukrainian army ground forces were deployed on the same day, after the separatists declined the ultimatum to lay down their arms. Two civilians were shot and killed at point blank range by pro-Russian militants in a car in Sloviansk; another one was wounded.
First offensive
Ukrainian forces launched their first military offensive to regain control of the Kramatorsk regional air base, using transport helicopters and armoured vehicles. Militants attempted to regain control of the airport, resulting in heavy fighting, but were not successful. Russian media estimated that this clash resulted in between four and eleven deaths. The leader of the government military operation, General Vasyl Krutov, was attacked by pro-Russian sympathizers after addressing a crowd demonstrating in front of the air base. Ukrainian armoured units were reported to be encircling Sloviansk to blockade all approach routes.
First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema claimed that elements of the 45th Russian airborne division were seen in the Sloviansk area on 16 April. Six Ukrainian armoured vehicles drove through Sloviansk bearing Russian flags, after their crews had apparently defected to the separatist cause. The 25th Airborne Brigade that had been blockading Sloviansk was then disbanded on orders of Ukraine's president. The government announced that the soldiers responsible would be court martialled.
On 18 April, Sloviansk "people's mayor" Vyacheslav Ponomarev announced a "hunt" for Ukrainian speakers in the Donetsk region, commanding the militants to report suspicious activity, especially if they heard that the Ukrainian language was used.
Ukrainian media claimed that the Zhytomyr Armoured Brigade recaptured two of the six armoured vehicles near Kramatorsk late on 18 April. No fatalities were recorded while one separatist was wounded. Following negotiations, a compromise was reached to return the remaining four BMDs to the Ukrainian military, but an official from the Ministry of Defence announced that the vehicles were still in the hands of the rebels as of 23 April.
In a later interview, Igor Strelkov, the commander of the pro-Russian forces at Sloviansk, claimed that they had six armoured vehicles, including a BMD-1, BMD-2, and a mortar carrier.
Easter truce
A truce for Easter was called by the Ukrainian government, which promised to temporarily halt military action in eastern Ukraine on 19 April.
Pro-Russian members of the Donbass People's Militia began a pogrom targeting the Romani population of the town. According to the International Renaissance Foundation, a Ukrainian NGO, separatist militiamen entered houses inhabited by Romanis, beat the residents, including women and children, and stole their property. The militants claimed they were acting on orders from "people's mayor" and militant leader Vyacheslav Ponomarev. Reports of the attacks were confirmed by Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, as well as a heightened level of xenophobic rhetoric at separatist rallies. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said that the government will not tolerate incitement of ethnic hatred and instructed law enforcement agencies to identify those involved in the attacks on Romani. According to Ponomarev, he held talks with Romani who he alleged were involved in drug trafficking, and "removed them from the city." Ponomarev said the incidents were not attacks on Romani, but rather "cleaning drugs out of the city."
Separatists kidnapped Euromaidan activist and journalist Irma Krat who had arrived in the city to cover the conflict. They later paraded her blindfolded in front of the press.
On 20 April, 20 Right Sector members led by Dmytro Yarosh were covertly sent by acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov to destroy the transformer of the Slavyansk television station on Karachun mountain. When their four-car convoy attempted to pass an insurgent-controlled checkpoint, a gunfight broke out, leading to the first combat fatalities of the conflict. Subsequently, the insurgents' claimed that they were attacked by Right Sector, but this was denied by the Kyiv government until two years later, when Dmytro Yarosh admitted that it was true. The two accounts continue to differ on which side shot first.
The pro-Russian separatists in Sloviansk claimed to have confiscated firearms including a German World War II-era MG-42 machine gun, a night vision device, aerial photos of Sloviansk, military uniforms, camping tools, US cash, and an alleged Right Sector business card of presidential candidate Dmytro Yarosh. Right Sector symbols including a medallion were also claimed to have been found. Right Sector spokesman Artem Skoropadsky denied the group's involvement in the attack, and blamed Russian special forces for it. "We don't have ID cards with numbers. We only have ID cards with letters, where we mention the department where the person works," said Boryslav Bereza, head of the information department for Right Sector. CNN called the phone number on the calling card and reached a woman who expressed surprise at the situation. She said that she was in Kyiv and had no relation to anyone in Right Sector. Viktoriya Siumar, deputy head of Ukraine's National Security Council, said the shooting was being investigated, but that there were indications that it was "an argument between local criminal groups".
Sky News correspondent Katie Stallard said there were inconsistencies in the separatists' accounts and there was no coherent evidence to back up their claims. Daniel Sandford of the BBC described the evidence presented as "dubious".
The video released by Russian TV which claimed to show the identifying badges of the Right Sector turned out to have been filmed ten hours before the actual attack took place, as evidenced by the time stamp, which the Russian camera crew forgot to remove.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said at least three separatists were killed and three wounded in what it suspected might have been an incident set up by Russian agents. "Armed lawbreakers and saboteurs who are terrorizing the local population around Slaviansk ... have turned to cynical provocation," the SBU security service said in a statement, describing the incident as a "staged attack". No group was present "other than the saboteurs and crime figures, supported and armed by officers of Russia's GRU" military intelligence, the SBU added. They also noted "One cannot but suspect the speed with which camera crews from Russian TV stations appeared at the scene of the shooting, and the obviously staged subject matter of news reports in the Russian media." The alleged Dmytro Yarosh business card was widely mocked on Ukrainian and Russian social media. In 2016, on the second anniversary of the attack, Dmytro Yarosh talked to Censor.net, corroborating that he did in fact lead the attack (though the actual combat leader was an unnamed Afghan national), and gave a detailed account of it.
Following the incident, "people's mayor" Ponomarev appealed to Russia to intervene militarily. Ponomarev then instituted a curfew in the city.
It was later reported that the man killed at the checkpoint was Pavel Pavelko, a resident of the surrounding area.
OSCE monitors were barred from the city by the separatists on 21 April. An OSCE team "has been in Donetsk but has not yet made progress," one diplomat said. "They are trying to get back into Slovyansk, but pro-Russian demonstrators have been blocking the way." An OSCE assessment released Monday described the situation as "very tense" in Donetsk and as "deteriorating" in Sloviansk, where "the entire town is under the control of armed groups."
Ukrainian officials distributed photos to the U.N and U.S. councils allegedly showing that pro-Russian militants were undercover Russian special forces. Other photos showed militants equipped and dressed the same as Russian soldiers in Crimea.
A Ukrainian military surveillance plane was damaged by small arms fire as it was on a reconnaissance flight over Sloviansk on 21 April, but safely made an emergency landing. None of the crew members were hurt. American journalist Simon Ostrovsky from Vice News was held captive by militants in the city.
Military operation resumes
On 23 April Ukraine's Interior Ministry said it had cleared separatist forces out of the nearby city of Sviatohirsk and that no one was injured. "During the anti-terrorism operation by special forces, the city was freed," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website. "Currently Sviatohirsk and its surroundings are being patrolled by police."
Ponomarev promised to prevent presidential elections in Ukraine at any cost. He said, "We will take all necessary measures so that elections in the southeast do not take place". Asked how he would accomplish this, he responded, "We'll take somebody as hostage and hang him by the balls." He also promised to destroy dissent, calling it "a harsh truth of life."
On 24 April, Ukrainian troops took control of three checkpoints surrounding the city, and according to the Interior Ministry, five separatists were killed and one police officer wounded in the attacks. The checkpoints were burned. Ukrainian forces distributed leaflets to residents of Sloviansk encouraging them to remain peaceful, and the Ministry reported that Ponomarev had announced that anyone seen with the leaflet would be "shot on the spot."