Battle of Ilovaisk
The Battle of Ilovaisk[c] started on 7 August 2014, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine and pro-Ukrainian paramilitaries began a series of attempts to capture the city of Ilovaisk from pro-Russian insurgents affiliated with the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and detachments of the Russian Armed Forces.[6][29][30] Although Ukrainian forces were able to enter the city on 18 August,[31] they were encircled between 24 and 26 August by overwhelming Russian military forces that crossed the border, joining the battle.[32][33][34] After days of encirclement, Ukrainian forces rejected the DPR's proposal to open a humanitarian corridor on the condition that they abandon their armored vehicles and ammunition, and on the morning of 29 August 2014 began to leave Ilovaisk with their weapons.[35] The Russian side opened fire on the evacuating Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom died whilst trying to escape.[11][36]
The Chief of the General Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Viktor Muzhenko, claimed on 26 August 2016 that the cause of the battle's outcome was the involvement of Russian troops, along with Ukrainian commanders' incompetence in the planning of the retreat.[37]
Aftermath
A criminal probe into the failure of Ukrainian troops in Ilovaisk was opened 4 September by the office of Prosecutor General of Ukraine.[9] On the same date, a temporary parliamentary commission (TSK) headed by Batkivshchyna politician Andriy Senchenko was created and approved by 226 (out of 446) members of the Ukrainian parliament.
According to the Head of the Verkhovna Rada's Ilovaisk investigative committee Andriy Senchenko, up 1,000 soldiers in and around Ilovaisk were killed or later succumbed to their wounds during August.[9] A BBC article from 2019, interviewing survivor Roman Zinenko, gives the official number of dead in the Ilovaisk battle as 366, possibly a bit over 400 when including missing or unidentified bodies.[75]
Defence Minister Valeriy Heletey was forced to resign on 14 October, in part because of his responsibility for the failure of military coordination during the battle.[76]
In Russian nationalist circles the Russian forces that joined the battle are commonly referred to as "The Northern wind" (Russian: Северный ветер).[77][78][79][80][81]
Since 2019, Ukraine observes the Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of Ukraine annually on 29 August.[82] This day was chosen because 29 August 2014 was the day of the greatest Ukrainian losses during the Battle of Ilovaisk.[82]
On 26 March 2023, it was reported that Russian regiment commander Dmitri Lisitsky, who commanded a battalion of the 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment responsible for the massacre of withdrawing Ukrainian troops, was killed in action against Ukraine. In 2015 Lisitsky was awarded the Hero of Russia award for his actions.[83]