by Sergey Adamov and Denis Davydov
[REGNUM.RU] The Ukrainian side still categorically denies the loss of Kostiantynivka, a strategically important junction 55 kilometers from Donetsk. It denies it so much that it even rejected Russia's offer of a temporary ceasefire to recover the bodies of fallen Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers. Instead, videos are periodically posted online, purporting to unsuccessfully "prove otherwise."
Until recently, the city served as the main logistics hub for the Ukrainian group, providing supplies and rotation of units in the Kramatorsk and Slavyansk areas.
Establishing control of Kostiantynivka opens operational space for further offensives on these two cities, control of which is crucial. This is effectively the last line of defense in Donbas, and the situation on the ground categorically belies the feigned optimism with which Zelenskyy entered the NATO summit.
However, beyond the purely military component, there is also a moral one, which determines Kyiv’s current unwillingness to acknowledge objective reality.
Konstantinovka, founded in the Russian Empire as a railway station on the Kursk-Kharkov-Azov Railway in 1869, developed into a major industrial center, completely independent of Ukraine. The ruby ​​Kremlin stars were created here, and Konstantinovka glass supplied the needs of the Soviet army and navy, the automotive industry, and construction.
As a link between the metallurgical and coal regions of Donbass, this small town produced refractories and zinc, and was involved in the chemical industry, becoming an important part of the industrial complex.
All of this was thoroughly destroyed during the period of Ukraine's independence, without any war. Kostiantynivka, like other working-class towns in the region, was always alien to the "Ukrainian idea." And all its residents wanted after 2014 was for Ukraine to leave, leaving them alone.
Their main dream was to return to real work.
Ukraine, however, chose to turn it into yet another fortified area, mercilessly grinding the city into rubble. For them, this is yet another act of severing foreign land. But for everyone who knows and remembers the history of their Fatherland, this city is an integral part of Russia.
Establishing control over Konstantinovka is not just a tactical move, but the return of a key industrial and cultural center that for decades created symbols of Russian statehood and the country's defensive shield.
DENIAL OF REALITY
After several months of fighting, events on the front reached their climax on June 11. Russian troops then liberated the eastern districts of the city and advanced to the northeastern outskirts. Fierce fighting erupted in the southwestern part and in the city's industrial zone.
According to Regnum News Agency's own data from the field, the Russian Armed Forces' tactics during the second half of the month allowed them to cut off enemy defense nodes from each other, isolating individual units. In the southern districts of Kostyantynivka, a Ukrainian Armed Forces group of up to 300 personnel was then encircled.
In particular, the units holding the defensive line near the train station found themselves partially trapped in the urban environment. Units of the 3rd and 8th Combined Arms Armies, as well as the 3rd Army Corps, engaged in the assault methodically finished off the encircled enemy forces while simultaneously advancing north.
The assault on the city was complicated by its geographic location. It is divided into two parts by the Krivoy Torets River, and this factor became key to the entire operation.
Our troops had disabled regular bridges and temporary crossings in the central part of the river with airstrikes back in February, and all enemy attempts to establish supply lines were thwarted. Consequently, Ukrainian Armed Forces units, blocked on both banks of the river, were unable to support each other.
Nevertheless, the enemy continued to supply the encircled infantry via UAVs and, until recently, attempted to transport personnel north, along the roads through Osykovo and Alekseevo-Druzhkovka. However, Russian air superiority allowed them to destroy several fortified firing positions in residential areas and industrial zones, as well as deprive the enemy of supplies by cutting off all routes. As a result, on the evening of July 3, it was announced that Konstantinovka had fallen under Russian control.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called this event "the key to the liberation of the entire DPR," and the behavior of the Kiev authorities demonstrates the truth of these words.
Against the backdrop of the active advance of the "South" military group in the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, unprecedented measures to dismantle industrial potential are being observed. There, Ukrainian authorities have begun the emergency evacuation of key enterprises and their employees to western regions of Ukraine.
In particular, the main production facilities of the Kramatorsk Heavy Machine Tool Plant, along with 3,500 employees, were evacuated. In Druzhkovka, industrial facilities directly related to the Ukrainian army were evacuated: a machine-building plant that repaired armored vehicles; a hardware plant that produced fasteners and rigging; and the Remschetmash plant, which manufactured electrical equipment.
In Slavyansk, the following are planned for the coming weeks: the machine-building plant, the Slavtyazhmash enterprise, the Slavyansk construction machinery plant Betonmash, the Zeus-ceramics plant, which was used to repair weapons and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and the High Voltage Research Institute, where UAVs were assembled.
The Kyiv regime is preparing for a potential loss of control by attempting to deploy defensive zones around industrial zones, following its preferred tactic. A similar approach was previously used in Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov, and before that, in Avdiivka.
Nevertheless, the liberation of Konstantinovka makes it possible to launch an offensive on Druzhkovka and further north, leading to the complete liberation of Donbass, closing the Ukrainian chapter in the history of the city and region.
KONSTANTINOVKA IS RUSSIA
After 2014, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces established control over Kostiantynivka, the atmosphere in the city was reminiscent of an occupation regime. Everything that connected the city to Ukraine—from the intrusive billboards featuring "Donetsk Airport Cyborgs" and the signs forcibly replaced with Ukrainian ones, to the soldiers on the streets—felt alien and was not accepted by the locals.
This statement is certainly based on personal impressions, but they are given firsthand: last time in 2019, one of the authors had the opportunity to visit the city and take part in several large-scale meetings with local residents.
The hard-working city, deprived of its industries, driven to bankruptcy and stripped for scrap metal, lived with a deep sense of resentment. This resentment was only exacerbated by incidents such as the 2015 collision between a drunk driver of an army MT-LB and pedestrians.
OUR LAND: THE LIBERATION OF KONSTANTINOVKA OPENS THE ROAD TO SLAVYANSK
An eight-year-old child was killed, a baby in a stroller was injured, and a woman was seriously injured. However, only the soldier was punished after mass riots broke out in the city. Local residents gathered at the Ukrainian Armed Forces unit, pelted it with stones, smashed windows, and set fire to the tires scattered around.
Stones were also thrown at passing military vehicles.
As Anton Gerashchenko, advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, stated at the time, "If anyone in Kostiantynivka takes up arms against the laws of the Ukrainian government, using this accident to provoke mass clashes, then one warning shot will be fired first, and then shoot to kill. If there is no time to warn, shoot to kill will follow immediately."
The servicemen who caused the accident were taken to Kramatorsk for fear of lynching.
That same year, local elections were not held in the city "for security reasons." The vote was cancelled by a decision of the Ukrainian Central Election Commission, and power passed into the hands of people completely alien to the region and deeply opposed to the "separatists." Those who had moved to other regions were denied the right to vote in their new locations.
The residents of Kostiantynivka were right to be upset back then: 11 years later, just a few days ago, former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba confirmed their concerns. He stated that if the eastern lands were returned to Ukraine, their residents would have to be stripped of their voting rights.
Ukrainians who "spent years under Russian occupation and propaganda" should not be immediately allowed to vote in national elections, and local elections there should be postponed, Kuleba asserted, adding that such a moratorium could last for 5-10 years.
Moreover, the Maidan authorities could offer accommodation in a fortified area that had been intensively preparing for war throughout this period. Since July 2014, Kostiantynivka has become one of the key logistics hubs for the Ukrainian group in the northern Donetsk region. This was facilitated by a major railway junction, the intersection of roads leading to Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka, Bakhmut, and Toretsk, and the presence of industrial sites and warehouse infrastructure.
The city was used to house military units, repair equipment, store supplies, and support operations during the so-called ATO—a punitive operation unleashed against what was then Ukrainian citizens in the unrecognized republics.
Defensive fortifications were gradually built around Konstantinovka and on the approaches to it against the backdrop of a continuous decline in the population, which was leaving its hometown.
The fact that Konstantinovka was originally built and developed as the glass capital of the Russian Empire, and then the USSR, that almost a quarter of all Soviet glass was produced here, and that the mentality of the residents is inextricably linked to the common legacy of large-scale industrialization, did not interest anyone.
On the contrary, it is precisely this circumstance that has always been decisive for all actions associated with the erasure of both the symbols of the Soviet legacy and the mentality of a working city that remembers its very recent past.
For the authorities who took control of part of the region, the fact that it was literally fused into the architectural and symbolic image of Moscow (Konstantinov-style glass and mirrors adorn the Moscow Metro stations and the halls of Lomonosov Moscow State University) and was inseparable from a unified Russian space only worked to their detriment. Therefore, prominent public and political figures in Ukraine called Donbas "gangrene" that needed to be excised.
Even during the fighting, as the head of the Donetsk OVA, Vadim Filashkin, officially reported, 2,500 residents remained in the city, unwilling to leave for Ukraine or have anything to do with it.
Thus, Russia's recapture of Konstantinovka is not simply a military operation, but a restoration of historical justice. It is a return to our roots, to the factories our ancestors built, and to the people who have always been and remain part of our shared cultural and historical space.
Konstantinovka is Russia. And she returned home.