On the morning of May 23, 2014, near a gas station near Karlivka, a convoy of cars and minibuses, on which a platoon of the Ukrainian volunteer battalion Donbas was moving, was ambushed by the DPR militia.

[citation needed] On July 10, 2014, the offensive of the DPR militia near Karlivka was stopped by units of the 93rd brigade, parts of the Donbas and Dnipro-2 battalions.

On July 12, 2014, Bezler received an order from the DPR Defense Minister Igor Strelkov to relocate the "North" company from Karlivka to his zone in Horlivka.

[3] Over the past month and a half of the defense of this village, seventeen soldiers of the Bezler group were killed, thirty wounded and eleven were captured.

The attacks of the Ukrainian side did not bring much success, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to pull up to 40 armored vehicles and 350 personnel from the vicinity of Selydovo.

On the night of July 22–23, 2014, the DPR militia fighters, suffering heavy losses from the fighting, were forced to retreat from Karlivka, Netailove and Pervomaiske.

After the withdrawal from Karlivka and the surrounding area due to unequal forces, the main hostilities were conducted for the capture of the village of Pisky.

Mortar attacks by the DPR militia from the vicinity of Nevelske destroyed two Grad installations and half of the howitzers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In addition, within a few days after the retreat in the vicinity of Karlivka, the militia carried out pinpoint strikes on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.