Battle of Donbas (2022)

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.