Analysis of Toretsk Satellite Images

For quite some time, updated satellite images of the city of Toretsk, which the Russian occupiers have turned into ruins, were not publicly available. Until recently, only images from 2020 were available. In December 2025, images from September 2024 were published, confirming the city’s terrible destruction.

For a long time, the Toretsk agglomeration was almost the only area in the Donetsk region where the enemy had made no progress. As of spring 2024, the line of contact here ran almost along the line of the so-called ORDLO — the territories that were occupied in 2014.

Everything changed at the end of May and the beginning of June 2024. The enemy launched a massive offensive on Toretsk, aimed at rapidly occupying the entire Toretsk agglomeration and reaching the outskirts of Konstantinovka by the autumn of 2024. These plans were approved by the occupiers’ official command, according to intelligence from one of the Ukrainian Defense Forces’ brigades.

However, despite the plans and the sizable strike group involved in the assaults on Toretsk, a quick breakthrough and capture did not succeed. Even as of now, in winter 2025, part of the Toretsk agglomeration remains in the “gray zone,” not under the occupiers’ stable control. The fighting for the center of Toretsk continued until the spring of 2025, while, according to the occupiers’ plans, it should have ended in the summer of 2024.

It is known that by 2025, Toretsk was almost 100% destroyed. However, satellite images from September 2024 prove that the Russian army was destroying civilian objects even before the fighting began in the city itself. As of September 2024, according to the reputable OSINT project Deep State, the occupiers were only attempting to enter the eastern part of Toretsk in small groups.

Despite this, footage from that time confirms that as a result of enemy shelling, literally all medical and educational institutions in the city and its outskirts were destroyed or significantly damaged.

“I analyzed every address of a school, kindergarten, and medical institution in Toretsk, according to the open registry, and checked the condition of these facilities in satellite images from September 2024. The central city hospital in Toretsk, along with four outpatient clinics, was destroyed. This was already known in June 2024, when I was personally in Toretsk and documented the destruction of civilian objects,” says journalist Serhii Okunev.

Satellite images confirm that by September, only parts of the walls and foundation remained of the central hospital building.

Information about 9 school education institutions in Toretsk and its surroundings was found in the public domain. As of September 2024, all of them had suffered either complete or significant destruction. Schools No. 1, 2, 5, and 13, and the boarding school were destroyed practically to the foundations.

The situation is the same with preschool education institutions and kindergartens. Several kindergartens in Toretsk were located in the same buildings as schools, so the destruction of a school also meant the destruction of the kindergarten in that building. Kindergarten No. 8 “Golden Key,” kindergarten No. 14 “Divotsvet,” and kindergarten No. 1 “Little Red Riding Hood” were utterly destroyed.

Counting the destroyed and damaged civilian buildings is practically impossible. The entire central part of the city was already destroyed or significantly damaged by September. Dozens of multi-story buildings collapsed; only foundations and piles of bricks remain of some. The multi-story building district in eastern Toretsk is 90% destroyed. The central part has extremely significant damage. The same applies to the southern part, where predominantly private houses were located.

It is worth noting again that the data listed is current as of September 2024. As of winter 2025, approximately 98% of the city of Toretsk has been destroyed.

What does this prove?

Russian propaganda often uses the false argument that Russian troops allegedly occupy settlements without significant destruction. At the same time, it claims, it is the Ukrainian army that proceeds to destroy them after losing control of cities or villages.

In 2025, such a stance does not withstand any scrutiny as satellite data from September 2024 once again confirms that it is the Russian occupiers who are destroying civilian objects — hospitals, schools, and ordinary residential buildings — even before the start of urban fighting.

A similar tactic of “capturing ruins” was used in Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Pokrovsk, Vuhledar, and other Ukrainian settlements. The enemy first turns the city into ashes, not caring about all restrictions regarding the protection of the civilian population, and then occupies an utterly destroyed city.