Shakhove

Shakhove is a village in the Pokrovsk Raion of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of the Shakhove rural hromada. Its population was about 900 (2001 estimate). As residents have fled during Russia's Pokrovsk offensive, the population was estimated to be around 72 people in October 2025, shortly before the village's capture by Russian forces. The village was founded following the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774 by Oleksiy Hryhorovych Shakhov, who was a captain in the Imperial Russian Army, and named the settlement originally after his first name. After the establishment of multiple factories in the village and its renaming, it was made the center of the Kazennoye-Torskoye-Alekseyevskoye volost in Bakhmut uezd. In 1912, just before the outbreak of World War One, the village reached its peak population of 1,185 people. After the fall of Imperial Russia and its takeover by the Soviet Union, it was renamed to Oktyabrskoye. In the subsequent decades, a new collective farm was opened entitled "Rossiia", and new buildings were built. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the village became part of Ukraine, which in 2016 renamed it to Shakhove. Shakhove was the popular name used by peasants that came from the last name of the founder of the village. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the village became the site of significant fighting due its proximity to both Dobropillia and Pokrovsk during the Pokrovsk offensive. Following months of fighting, the village was captured by Russian forces sometime in late November to early December 2025. Russia calls Shakhove by its pre-2016 name Oktyabrskoye and considers it to be part of the Donetsk People's Republic, which it claims to have annexed.