The Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, admitted to Putin that his troops have received the corresponding orders. While to reach Kramatorsk, the other stronghold of the north of the region, the Russians still have a lot of work to do in Kostiantynivka. Medvedev highlighted that, despite the enemy's resistance, Russian assault units are advancing in the eastern and southeastern neighborhoods of the city, and have become embroiled in «street fighting in the northeast» of the city of 70,000 inhabitants before the war. In total, the Russians are currently attacking nine Ukrainian strongholds in the regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv. All roads lead to Sloviansk The former Russian officer Igor Girkin, alias Strelkov, leader of the pro-Russian uprising, once admitted to EFE that Sloviansk was not his first choice, but that as a clearly pro-Russian city and an important railway junction, it fulfilled the role of the heart of the insurgency. Months later, Sloviansk would fall back into the hands of Kyiv and, together with Kramatorsk, would become the main fortified district of the Ukrainian army, theoretically irreducible, in the north of Donetsk. The city, from which thousands of people have emigrated to Russia and other regions of Ukraine, was far from the front line for many months, but now war is knocking on its door. The Russian General Staff believes that the capture of Sloviansk will surely cause the immediate collapse of the front, to which must be added the symbolism of the city where the pro-Russians rebelled against Kyiv. All roads lead to Sloviansk, and indeed, if one took the train from Kyiv to the Donbas in the past, there was a high chance of ending up at the Sloviansk train station, which has long ceased to receive passengers. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has ordered the capture of the north of the Donetsk region in the coming months, the most militarized area of all of Ukraine, which portends the bloodiest battle of the entire war. In the event that negotiations do not reach a successful conclusion, Moscow wants to convince the world that the conquest of the Donbas is a fait accompli. In particular, the Kremlin has in its sights Sloviansk, where the Ukrainian conflict began on April 12, 2014, when a group of Russian soldiers took over a local police station in that city in the Donetsk region. Putin likes to say that the war did not begin in 2022, but in 2014, although not when the Ukrainian government was overthrown in February, as the Kremlin head claims, and not even when Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula in March, but in April. The rebels would be replaced in the following months by irregular troops sent by Moscow, who would defeat the Ukrainian army, proclaim the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk from Kyiv, and lay the foundations for the current Russian military campaign, which will soon be four years old. The final battle for northern Donetsk The capture of the town of Siversk, located a little over 30 kilometers from Sloviansk, is the starting point of the final battle for control of northern Donetsk, which has resisted the Russians since early 2022. «We have liberated the city of Siversk, which paves the way to continue the offensive towards the town of Sloviansk,» stated Sergey Medvédev, commander of the Southern Military Group, while presenting a report to the Russian leader. The generals reporting to Putin on the situation in the theater of operations are very careful to mention on several occasions that offensive actions towards Sloviansk continue to the satisfaction of the supreme commander. «The liberation of Siversk and the successful offensive actions in that direction significantly bring a new and successful—I have no doubt—offensive in other sectors and the expulsion of the armed formations of Ukraine from our territory and the restoration of peace in the land of Donbas,» commented Putin. Experts believe that the Russian army, which has taken less than 1% of Ukraine's territory in 2025, will still need several more months to complete the total control of Donetsk, where the Ukrainians still control 20% of the territory. In addition, to reach Sloviansk, the Russians must take Lyman, which is about 20 kilometers to the northeast.
