On June 4, 2014, Lyman was liberated from Russian occupation.
Lyman became the first city in Donetsk Oblast to be liberated by Ukrainian forces.
In mid-April 2014, reconnaissance and sabotage units of the Russian armed forces invaded eastern Ukraine. Starting on April 12, a number of settlements in Donetsk Oblast were seized by force - on that day and the next, heavily armed men simultaneously attacked government agencies and local authorities in several cities: Donetsk, Sloviansk, Horlivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka, Lyman, Bakhmut, and Pokrovsk.
One of the first cities to be liberated was Lyman. The operation involved the 1st Battalion of the 79th Airmobile Brigade, paratroopers and artillery of the 25th Separate Airborne Brigade, units of the 17th Tank Brigade, special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - the Jaguar and Omega regiments, and National Guard soldiers.
On June 2-4, 2014, an operation was conducted to liberate the town of Lyman from Russian occupation. Units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs surrounded the city from all sides.
On June 3 and 4, the ATO forces conducted a special operation to detain Russian militants, during which they destroyed a militant training base and strongholds. The next day, a blue and yellow flag flew over the city's administrative buildings. Until June 19, bloody battles continued for the liberation of the settlements of the Lyman region near the village of Yampil, the villages of Zakitne and Kryva Luka.
This was the first stage for the further liberation of the cities of northern Donetsk region.
On June 3, 2014, a twenty-nine-year-old soldier of the 79th separate airmobile brigade, Yuriy Vlasenko, was killed during a special operation to liberate the city. According to the Decree of the President of Ukraine of July 15, 2014, No. 593/2014, "for personal courage and heroism displayed in the defense of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," he was awarded the Order "For Courage" of the III degree (posthumously).
In 2022, Lyman was again on the contact line. In April, the city came under Russian occupation. During the fighting and due to Russian shelling, Lyman was heavily damaged. In the fall of the same year, thanks to the coordinated actions of the Ukrainian army, Lyman was de-occupied. Ukrainian flags returned to the city.