A petition to award the city of Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, the title of "Hero City" on the website of the President of Ukraine has collected 25,000 signatures. This was reported by UNN with reference to the website of the head of state.
Details
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has 53 days to respond. The author of the petition noted that in 2014, Bakhmut became a stopping point for pro-Russian attacks, and Ukrainian defenders prevented the capture of strategic facilities.
During 85 days of occupation, local residents who disagreed with the occupiers' regime and pro-Russian policies were abducted, interrogated, and illegally detained in the captured building of the local prosecutor's office. Thanks to the protection of military units in Bakhmut, pro-Russian militants did not gain access to large stocks of military equipment, weapons, and ammunition
After its liberation, Bakhmut remained a frontline city that hosted military personnel and displaced persons from other parts of Donbas. In 2015, the Russians shelled the eastern outskirts of the city with MLRS: a child and a woman were killed, and seven more people were injured, including three children.
After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Bakhmut took on the enemy invasion. The Russians took the city in 2023 at the cost of heavy losses.
Awarding Bakhmut the status of "Hero City of Ukraine" is a moral obligation of the state to the community that stood firm, to the Ukrainian soldiers who gave their lives, and to all of Ukraine and the world, for whom our city has become a fortress of resistance, faith, courage, and invincibility of Ukrainians