Alchevsk (, translit. Alchevs'k; ) is a city of significance in the Luhansk Oblast of Ukraine. It is located approximately from the oblast capital, Luhansk. Population: Alchevsk is one of the largest industrial centers in the Donbas, and comprises a quarter of the entire oblast's production. The city economy depends on OJSC "Alchevsk Iron & Steel Works" (a trade blockade by Ukrainian activists during the war in Donbas has all but halted production of this plant in February 2017) and "Alchevsk Coke-Chemical Plant" companies. The city was known as Voroshylovsk () from 1931 to 1961, and then Kommunarsk () until 1991. Alchevsk came under control of pro-Russian separatists in early 2014, and was incorporated into the Lugansk People's Republic. After the 2022 annexation referendums in Russian-occupied Ukraine, Russia claimed the city as part of Russia. History Alchevsk was founded in 1895 with the establishment of an iron works and named after the Russian industrialist Oleksiy Alchevsky who founded the Donetsk–Yuryev Metallurgical Society. A local newspaper is published in the city since 1930. In 1931, Alchevsk was renamed Voroshilovsk, after Kliment Voroshilov, a Soviet military and party figure. During World War II, in 1942–1943, the German occupiers operated a Gestapo prison in the city. As Voroshilov's personality cult was diminishing, the town was renamed Kommunarsk in 1961. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the original name was restored in 1992. Winter disaster of 2006 On 22 January 2006 the district heating system of the city almost entirely collapsed after an underground heat pipe line cracked in unusually cold weather (nearly ). As a result, heating equipment in the majority of Alchevsk's buildings was frozen and ruptured, leaving about 60,000 residents with only the protection of individual electric heaters. A few days later the sewage system also froze due to a lack of warm tap water. An investigation revealed the massive, long-time negligence of the city authorities. The whole heating system was designed in a hyper-centralized way, depending on only two boilers and few main pipelines. Moreover, the housing company failed to react to the pipe incident properly: the water from the system wasn't immediately dumped to prevent further freezing. The Ukrainian government took massive emergency actions to protect Alchevsk residents from freezing. Engineering teams sent by cities and industrial companies from other regions of the country were gradually restoring heating appliances in every apartment affected. Hundreds of children together with