Starting on Mid-April 2014, pro-Russian separatists captured several towns in Donetsk Oblast; including Avdiivka. In July 2014 fighting between the separatists and the Ukrainian army (during which Ukrainian forces secured the city from the pro-Russian separatists) damaged the Coke plant and it has been hit by 165 mortars during the conflict. The plant stopped working on 17 August 2014 due to the increasing violence. On 5 February 2015, the workers of the plant published an open letter to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, accusing the 25th Airborne Brigade and the volunteer Aidar Battalion of opening fire from residential areas, asking that they be removed from the town. The letter also claims that the town has been without water, heat and electricity for the past six months and warns of the ecological catastrophe that could follow from further shelling of the plant. After being recaptured by the Ukrainian army, production has been resumed, albeit at one third capacity. Much of the plant is damaged and the administration takes place in a Soviet bunker built beneath the site to avoid shelling. In January 2017, Russian separatists shelled the town of Avdiivka with rounds from a BM-21 Grad, causing heavy damage to the plant's generators and disrupting gas production, as well as leaving the town without heating for several days. This shelling killed the 10th factory employee to die since the start of the War in Donbass.