Alchevsk came under control of pro-Russian separatists in early 2014, and was incorporated into the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR / LNR).

[4] On 22 January 2006, the city's district heating system collapsed, in what Luhansk Governor Gennady Moskal described as "the worst man-made disaster in the history of independent Ukraine" (Ukrainian: найгіршою антропогенною катастрофою в історії незалежної України).

[7][8] It has subsequently become a metonym in Ukrainian political discourse for cities without utility services,[7][9] particularly during Russian infrastructural attacks in the 2020s invasion.

The heat authority delayed draining the working fluid, and water throughout the system froze and burst additional pipes, some inside the walls of residential apartments.

Inhabitants turned to electric space heaters to fill the gap, but these overloaded the grid, leading to rolling blackouts.

[9] The authorities temporarily evacuated schoolchildren from the area to Crimea and Western Ukraine, but struggled to organize an extensive repair effort.

[9] Later that year, President Yushchenko announced a plan to further harden the system against stress with a set of nine distributed boilers.

[10] Starting mid-April 2014, pro-Russian separatists captured and occupied several towns in the Luhansk Oblast,[11][12] including Alchevsk.