Svitlodarsk (, ; ) is a city in Bakhmut Raion,

Donetsk Oblast Donetsk Oblast, also referred to as Donechchyna (, ), is an Oblasts of Ukraine, oblast in eastern Ukraine. It is Ukraine's most populous province, with around 4.1 million residents. Its capital city, administrative centre is Donetsk, though d ...

, eastern

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. The city has a population of It is an industrial town, built as the home for the Vuhlehirska power station. During the

war in Donbas The war in Donbas, or the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The war Timeline of the war in Donbas (2014), began in April 2014, when Russian separatist forces in Ukraine, Russian para ...

that began in 2014, the city was near the frontline with the separatist

Donetsk People's Republic The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR; , ) is Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, occupied territory in Ukraine that the Russian Federation has claimed to annex and declared as a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia, comprising parts o ...

.Ukraine forces in Svitlodarsk try to learn what's coming next in Russia's war

Kyiv Post The ''Kyiv Post'' is Ukraine’s first and most prominent English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1995 in Kyiv by American businessman Jed Sunden. In 2018, the publication was acquired by prominent Ukrainian businessman Adnan Kivan, foun ...

(23 August 2015) Because of the conflict, the number of residents shrank to a few thousand by 2015. In 2016, it was the site of the bloody battle of Svitlodarsk. It was a city of district significance until that designation was abolished in 2020. On 24 May 2022, during the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, the city was captured by Russian forces as part of the battle of Donbas.

Demographics

As of the Ukrainian national census in 2001, 13,203 people were residing in the city. Accounting for over 60% of the population, ethnic

Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

make up the majority of the local population, while almost 37% of the population claims to have a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

background. The exact ethnic composition was as follows: In terms of languages, Svitlodarsk is predominantly Russian-speaking. Three out of four persons claimed to use

as their primary language, while the remaining quarter, with only very few exceptions, spoke Ukrainian as their first language. The exact lingual composition as of the Ukrainian Census of 2001 was:ukrcensus.gov.ua
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References

Cities in Donetsk Oblast Svitlodarsk urban hromada Populated places established in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Cities of district significance in Ukraine * {{Donetsk-geo-stub