Sloviansk, located in the Donetsk region, has been and continues to be a symbolic city for Russian occupiers—a trigger city.
This was stated by Serhiy Horbatenko, a Radio Liberty correspondent from Sloviansk, during an interview on Hromadske Radio.
«In the summer of 2022, prior to the Kharkiv counter-offensive, one of the main objectives of the occupiers was to encircle Sloviansk, as they posed a threat to the city from three sides.
From 2014 to 2022, Sloviansk was consistently referenced by propagandists and the hybrid Russian forces stationed in the city. For them, both then and now, Sloviansk remains a symbolic city, emblematic of the beginning of the «Russian Spring». In essence, Sloviansk serves as a trigger for the Russians», — Horbatenko explained.
On April 12, 2014, Sloviansk became the first city in Ukraine to be seized by Russian subversive groups during the war in eastern Ukraine. It was liberated less than three months later, on the night of July 5, 2014.