The devastated city -- which was home to some 60,000 people before Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion -- has become a key focus of the Kremlin's yearslong push to capture all of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk Oblast, which along with neighboring Luhansk Oblast makes up the Donbas region.

Russia and Ukraine have traded almost daily assaults on each other’s energy infrastructure as U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the nearly four-year war make no impact on the battlefield.