Toretsk

Toretsk (Ukrainian: Торецьк; Russian: Торецк) is an industrial city in Bakhmut Raion, Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Toretsk urban hromada. As of January 2022, its population was approximately 30,914. It has its origins as the hamlet Shcherbynivka, built during the mid-19th century developments in coal mining in the Donbas region. It developed over the following century with the rise of rail transport. Between 1936–2016, the city was named Dzerzhynsk after Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet security service Cheka. The city received its current name in 2016, as a result of decommunization laws. Toretsk has seen fighting and shelling during the War in Donbas, in the first phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014, which has depopulated and heavily damaged the infrastructure of the city over the years. After the year-long Battle of Toretsk during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia captured the city in August 2025. Due to the fighting, the city was ruined and virtually entirely depopulated. Russia calls Toretsk by its pre-2016 name Dzerzhinsk and considers it to be part of the Donetsk People's Republic, which it claims to have annexed.