Who defends the Holy Mountains in Donetsk region. Report from the positions of Kulchytsky’s battalion

On September 12, the Ukrainian army entered Sviatohirsk, a town of 4,000 people on the banks of the Siverskyi Donets River that had been under Russian occupation since the first days of June.

By this time, for three and a half months, Ukrainian defenders held a line of defense on the neighboring, higher bank of the river. It is home to the famous sites of the Sviati Hory National Nature Park and the entire Donetsk region – the monument to Artem and the Sviatohirsk Lavra.

Among those who contributed to the offensive on Sviatohirsk was the legendary Kulchytsky Operational Battalion of the National Guard of Ukraine.  The battalion is named after Major General Serhiy Kulchytskyi, who led the

training and coordination of the soldiers at the very beginning of the war. He died on May 29, 2014, when a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in Sloviansk. At the end of April, Kulchytsky’s battalion began to defend Sviatohirsk, and in early June, under a heavy barrage of Russian artillery, it was forced to leave. And now, setting the situation at the battlefront, it is returning back to Ukrainian Sviatohirsk.

Olga Kyrylenko, Nazarii Mazylyuk