Bakhmut

Historical map of Bakhmut and its fortifications

Although there is evidence of prior settlement in 1556, the first official mention of Bakhmut dates from 1571, when Ivan the Terrible, in order to protect the southern border of the Russian state from Crimean–Nogai slave raids, ordered the creation of border fortifications along the Aidar and Siverskyi Donets rivers.[15] The settlement was described then as a guard-fort (storozha) named after the nearby Bakhmutka River, a tributary of the Siverskyi Donets, and located at the mouth of a stream called the Chornyi Zherebets.[16]

The history of Bakhmut before the 18th century is sparse. It was initially a border post that later became a fortified town.[16] In 1701, Peter I ordered the fort at Bakhmut to be upgraded and the adjacent sloboda (free village) of Bakhmut be designated a city.[16] The new fort was completed in 1703 and housed 170 people.[16] In 1704, Peter commanded some Cossacks to settle at the Bakhmutka River and mine salt.[16] The population of Bakhmut doubled, and the town was assigned to the Izium Regiment, a province of Sloboda Ukraine.[16]

In the autumn of 1705, Bakhmut became one of the centers of the Bulavin Rebellion. A detachment of Don Cossacks headed by Ataman Kondraty Bulavin captured the Bakhmut salt mines[17] and occupied the city until they were defeated and the city retaken by government troops. According to official Soviet sources, the government forces "brutally" suppressed the revolution and Bakhmut was completely destroyed.[18]

From 1708 to 22 April 1725, Bakhmut was assigned to the Azov Governorate. On 29 May 1719, it became the administrative center of Bakhmut Province within the Azov Governorate.[19] From 1753 until the colony's abolition, it was the administrative center of Slavo-Serbia,[20][21] a short-lived territory that was settled by thousands of colonists from the Balkans, predominantly Serbs.[22][21] Bakhmut was fortified, to serve the colony's purpose of frontier protection.[23] In 1764, the Bakhmut hussar regiment was formed by merging two Serbian settler regiments, with its headquarters in Bakhmut.[24]

In 1783, Bakhmut became a city within Yekaterinoslav Province of Novorossiysk Governorate.[25] On 2 August 1811, a coat of arms of Bakhmut was approved, featuring symbolism evoking the salt reserves of the city.[21] In 1863, a large synagogue was built in the city, as a place of worship for Bakhmut's Jewish community of 1,560 people.[26] In 1875, a municipal water system was installed. In 1876, due to the work of Russian geologist Alexander Karpinsky, large deposits of rock salt were discovered near Bakhmut. Bakhmut soon produced 12.3% of the total output of salt in the Russian Empire.[18]

An early 20th-century postcard of Bakhmut

Bakhmut saw industrialization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early 1870s, German industrialist Edmund Farke built alabaster, brick and tile factories in the city.In 1878, the Kharkiv-Bakhmut-Popasna railroad was constructed. Streets were paved in Bakhmut in 1900. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the city began to develop metal-working industry. By 1909, the city had 64 industrial enterprises, which employed 1,075 workers.[18]

In April 1918, after the collapse of the Russian Empire, troops loyal to the Ukrainian People's Republic took control of Bakhmut.[27] Later, it was captured by White movement soldiers led by Pyotr Krasnov, who were eventually defeated by Soviet forces.[21]

From 1920 to 1925, Bakhmut was the administrative center of the newly created Donets Governorate of the Ukrainian SSR.[28][20] In 1923, there were many enterprises in Bakhmut, including the "Victory of Labor" factory that made nails and spikes, the "Blyskavka" ("Lightning") factory that produced agriculture tools, as well as brick, tile, and alabaster factories, and a shoe factory.[29] In 1922, to help rebuild the salt industry, a state salt mining company was created, which is now Artemsil. In 1925, the salt mining areas were split off from Bakhmut into their own urban-type settlement named Karlo-Libknekhtivsk (now Soledar).[18]

In 1924, the city's name was changed from Bakhmut to Artemivsk, in honour of the communist revolutionary figure Comrade Artem.[26] The city's synagogue was shuttered in 1928.[26] 3,255 residents of Artemivsk died as a result of the Holodomor.[20] During Stalin's Great Purge in the late 1930s, more than 500 residents of Artemivsk were victims of the repressions.[26]

Civilians in Artemivsk reporting to the Nazi occupation offices for forced labor, May 1942

During the Second World War, at the beginning of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Artemivsk's population included 5,300 Jews, making up almost 10% of the total population.[26] The majority of these were either drafted into the Red Army or evacuated into the interior areas of the Soviet Union.[26][30][31]

On 31 October 1941,[lower-alpha 3] Nazi German troops began their occupation of Artemivsk.[30] On 19 November, the occupation authorities issued a decree forcing the remaining local Jews to register at the local commandant's office and wear armbands marking them as Jewish.[30] On 9 January 1942, under the pretext of needing to gather in one place for relocation, Artemivsk's Jewish population was gathered in the city park,[26][31] where they were forced to hand over all their valuable possessions, then were locked in the cellar of a former NKVD building.[31] They were locked in the "freezing" cellar for three days without food or water. During this period, according to Haaretz, local residents threw lumps of snow through the windows in an attempt to provide some sort of drinkable water to the imprisoned Jews. A few residents risked their lives to rescue some Jewish children, a feat for which they would later receive the title of Righteous Among the Nations from Israel.[26]

The "Wailing Wall" memorial to the murdered Jews of the city

The Artemivsk massacre took place on 11–12 January 1942,[26] when Sonderkommando 4b of Einsatzgruppe C led thousands of Jews into a mineshaft in an alabaster mine,[31][32] where they shot into the crowd, killing several people.[26][31] The soldiers then bricked up the entrance to the tunnel, suffocating the remaining people trapped inside.[31] The exact number of dead is unclear,[33] and records of the Jewish death toll differ: Soviet documents reported a number of about 3,000, while the German occupation authorities recorded 1,200 victims.[34][31] The city was eventually liberated by the Red Army on 5 September 1943.[30][26]

In 1961, Kuzma Petrovich Golovko became First Secretary of the City Party Committee, followed by Ivan Malyukin in 1966, Nikolai S. Tagan in 1976, and Yuri K. Smirnov from 1980 to 1983. From April 1990 to 1994, during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Alexei Reva was Chairman of the Artemivsk City Council and was elected mayor in 1994, three years after Ukraine regained its independence.[35]

In January 1999, a charitable Jewish foundation in the city, as well as the Artemivsk city council and a winery that had opened on the site in 1952, inaugurated a memorial to commemorate the victims of the 1942 mass murder. The memorial was built into a rock face in the old mine where water collects and was named the "Wailing Wall" for the murdered Jews of the city.[31]

A Russian T-64BV, captured after the rebel retreat from Artemivsk

In April 2014, at the beginning of the war in Donbas, pro-Russian rebels led by Igor Bezler[21] and belonging to the organization Donetsk People's Republic claimed the city of Artemivsk as part of their territory.[36][37] Local military units defended the city for months, repelling separatist assaults over the course of the Battle of Artemivsk.[21][38] Ukrainian government forces fully recaptured the city on 7 July 2014, ending the battle.[39][40]

On 15 May 2015, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko signed a bill into law that started a six-month period for the removal of communist monuments and the mandatory renaming of settlements with names related to communism.[41] On 23 September 2015, the city council voted to restore the city's former name of Bakhmut.[42] The final decision was made by the Verkhovna Rada on 4 February 2016.[11][12]

Bakhmut in ruins, February 2023

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Bakhmut became a frontline city in May, and was regularly shelled by Russian forces.[43][44][45] In May 2022, according to local authorities, an estimated 20,000 people remained in the city.[46] It became a central battle of the war, attracting worldwide attention for the level of destruction of the city and the heaviness of casualties on both sides.[47]

According to the Associated Press in October 2022, "taking Bakhmut would rupture Ukraine's supply lines and open a route for Russian forces to press on toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk province".[48] In a December analysis of the offensive, however, the UK Ministry of Defence said "the capture of the town would have limited operational value although it would potentially allow Russia to threaten the larger urban areas of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk".[49] On 11 December 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian forces had turned the city into "burned ruins".[50]

By early March 2023, Russian forces had not taken Bakhmut, but were continuing to press the attack, and hoped to complete their encirclement of the city.[51] On 4 March, the deputy mayor of the city said that 4,000 civilians remained in Bakhmut and were living in shelters with no access to water, gas or electricity.[6] On 20 May, Russia claimed to have fully taken Bakhmut;[52][53] however, Ukraine has denied this.[54][55] At the G7 summit, Zelensky stated that the images of the ruined Hiroshima after atomic bombing reminded him of the level of destruction in Bakhmut.[56] The battle is still ongoing with Ukraine claiming to still control a strip of territory within city limits along the T0504 highway, as well as performing attacks on the flanks of the city.[57] By May 24, reports that corroborated the claimed seizure of the city by Russian and Wagner forces had surfaced.[7][58] By 25 May, Wagner had begun withdrawing from the city to be replaced by regular Russian troops.[59] On June 4, Yevgeny Prigozhin conceded that Ukrainian forces still controlled parts of the city along the T0504 highway.[60]

Bakhmut has a humid continental climate (Dfb bordering on Dfa).

The highway between Kharkiv and Rostov-on-Don passes near the city.[18]