Since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, it has been occupied by the widely unrecognized Luhansk People's Republic and later by Russia after its Annexation on 30 September 2022.

At the time, there was a growing demand for coal due to rapid industrialization in the Russian Empire, especially in the southern parts near Kryndachivka.

However, other than this, official Soviet historical sources describe Kryndachivka as a "small and dirty village" on the eve of World War I.

During the beginning of World War I proper, there were anti-war rallies and protests in the village, with workers refusing to go to the front and clashing with Tsarist authorities.

During the ensuing Russian Civil War, Alexey Kaledin of the anti-Bolshevik White movement deployed his armed Don Cossacks to the Donbas, but was unable to control the mines due to local resistance, according to Soviet sources.

By the end of that year, the Central Powers were expelled, but continued violence in the civil war took place, with the village changing hands several times until the final Bolshevik victory, and the establishment of the communist Soviet Union on the former territories of the Russian Empire.

German forces heavily shelled Krasnyi Luch, but were stopped 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the city, at the river Mius.

[7] The local Jewish population was murdered by the Nazis along with other categories of victims, such as Communists, and were thrown into the shaft of the Bogdan coal mine.

[8] On 1 August 1943, the well-known WWII fighter pilot Lydia Litvyak took off from a base at Krasnyy Luch, to the last mission from which she never came back.

[12] During the war in Donbas that began in 2014, Krasnyi Luch fell into the control of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), a Russian-led separatist group.

[18] In accordance with administrative reforms in Ukraine in 2020, Khrustalyni was officially designated by the Ukrainian government to Khrustalnyi urban hromada in Rovenky Raion.

However, the LPR - and later explicitly Russia - has never recognized the Ukrainian government's authority over the area, and consider the city to be part of the urban okrug Krasnyi Luch.

[20][better source needed] Footage of the attack was uploaded to social media where a group of Luhansk People's Republic militiamen are seen to be sheltering and fleeing from the ensuing ammunition fire.