I’ll try and give you a quick off-the-cuff history and then some links and such. Essentially, in the late 1980s, as the USSR entered terminal decline, there emerged a sharp dividing line between the Russian-speaking East and Ukrainian-speaking West. In 1989, the People’s Movement of Ukraine, an antisemitic Ukrainian nationalist organisation aiming to have Ukraine secede from the Union, was founded, drawing strong support from Western Ukraine. In response, the International Movement of Donbass was formed in 1990 by intellectuals in Lugansk and Donetsk, with substantial backing from miners. It promoted federalism after the collapse of the USSR, opposed nationalism, and supported the Soviet Union. The organisation also opposed the Ukrainianisation of Donbass (to understand why that’s a bad thing, read this post). Interfront also organised a lot of protests that went largely ignored by the Ukrainian government and coined the now semi-famous phrase in my house of “Donetsk is oriented towards Moscow,” a sentiment that became increasingly popular throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
In 1994, a referendum in Donetsk and Lugansk showed that around 90% of residents supported Russian becoming a co-official language alongside Ukrainian. This result was disregarded at the federal level. During this same period, nationalist and openly neo-Nazi parties such as the Social National Party were gaining traction in Western Ukraine, promoting conspiracies such as there being a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” controlling Ukraine and equating Russian language use with mental degeneracy. Western Ukraine increasingly aligned itself with Europe and the West, while southeastern Ukraine, especially Donbass, remained oriented toward Russia and retained a strong Soviet identity.
In 1997, the Party of Regions was formed, drawing its support base primarily from Donbass and eastern Ukraine. It promoted regionalism, opposed nationalism, leaned toward Russia, and rejected EU integration. It was a centre-left party and was affiliated with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Although initially weak, it later gained mass support due to the absence of viable political alternatives for the region.
Then there was the Orange Revolution of 2004–2005, during which a right-wing pro-Western/EU coalition made up of Pora!, Our Ukraine (liberal conservative political party), the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (pro-EU populist coalition), and the Ukrainian National Assembly (Ukrainian irredentist/nationalist, anti-communist, and neo-Nazi political organisation and paramilitary group), and thousands of protesters in the centre and west of the country came out to demonstrate against the democratically elected president, Donetsk native Viktor Yanukovych of the Party of Regions. Essentially, the coalition and protesters, supported by the US and Poland, argued the election had been stolen and that pro-West, NATO- and EU-aligned Viktor Yushchenko was the actual winner of the election. Yushchenko publicly called for protest. Local councils in the centre and west of the country passed legislation stating that they would not recognise Yanukovych as president. As it became more and more likely that these protests would actually do something, the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine formed a coalition with the Party of Regions against the Yushchenko bloc and organised mass protests across the East, again especially in Donbass. This is the birthplace of Donbass federalism. As the Orange Revolution continued and the Yushchenko bloc was clearly winning, we get the Sievierodonetsk Congress, where the Lugansk Oblast Council announced they had decided by a majority vote to create a Southeastern Ukrainian Autonomous Republic. Of course, by the next month the election results were annulled by the Supreme Court, and Yushchenko came to power, and the federalisation demands of the people and organisations that represented them in the East were strongly condemned.
In 2005, the Donetsk Republic movement was founded and banned in 2007, further increasing unrest in Donbass. While the organisation itself was not universally supported, its banning was widely opposed.
In the 2010 presidential election, Yanukovych won in elections the Central Election Commission and international observers declared were conducted freely and fairly.
In the 2012 Verkhovna Rada elections, the neo-fascist and anti-Russian Svoboda party, a member of the neo-Nazi Nation Europa network and formerly the Social-National Party of Ukraine, received two million votes, primarily from Western Ukraine. Two years later, Svoboda would establish their own Sturmabteilung, called the Sich Battalion, which was incorporated into Ukraine’s military and police apparatus under the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2015.
In 2012, legislation allowing regions with significant non-Ukrainian-speaking populations to grant co-official language status partially eased decades of language conflict in Donbass.
By 2013–2014, protests erupted across central and Western Ukraine after Yanukovych declined to sign an EU association agreement in favour of closer ties with Russia. These protests, already right-wing in character, were quickly overtaken by openly neo-Nazi groups. In January–February 2014, the so-called “Revolution of Dignity,” (commonly called the Euromaidan revolution) a Western-backed coup carried out with neo-Nazi participation, overthrew Yanukovych. Opposition existed nationwide but was strongest in Donetsk and Lugansk, regions that had overwhelmingly supported him.
In April 2014, protesters in Donetsk occupied the regional administration building. Shortly afterward, protesters in Lugansk stormed the Security Service of Ukraine building, demanding the release of detained Anti-Euromaidan activists. Similar occupations spread throughout the region. The Ukrainian government responded by announcing it would resolve the so-called “separatist problem” in Donbass, which was at that stage still a movement for federalisation, by negotiation or force within 48 hours. Three days later, it officially launched the Anti-Terrorist Operation.
The Battle of Kramatorsk followed, during which the AFU killed 11 civilians.
Leaving Donbass for a minute, clashes were taking place in the southern city of Odessa between pro-Maidan groups: Maidan People’s Union (Ukrainian nationalist pro-EU alliance), Right Sector (religious extremist and Ukrainian nationalist neo-Nazi paramilitary group), Misanthropic Division (neo-Nazi paramilitary), football ultras, and the Social-National Assembly (political wing of Azov, basically; neo-fascist and neo-Nazi). And anti-Maidan groups: Youth Unity, Odessa Brigade, Jews Against Hurwitz, People’s Alternative, and Borotba (central political organisation in the clashes; Marxist-Leninist). On the 2nd of May, a massive clash took place between the two groups, causing the pro-Maidan protesters to destroy an anti-Maidan protest encampment, and more violence to be exchanged between the groups. Anti-Maidan protesters sought shelter in the Trade Unions House and barricaded themselves inside. Anti-Maidan protesters began throwing Molotov cocktails, causing the Trade Unions building to be set on fire. Thirty-two anti-Maidan activists burned to death or suffocated, and a further 10 died jumping out of windows to escape the fire, many being beaten to death by the pro-Maidan protesters once they landed. The police did nothing but stood by and watched. A European Court of Human Rights ruling in March 2025 found Ukraine responsible for failing to prevent fatalities and conduct an effective investigation into the events.
Shortly thereafter, Ukrainian forces drove tanks through Mariupol and opened fire on civilians during Victory Day and set the police station on fire, killing 26 people. When the Ukrainian army first arrived in Mariupol, many local men came out and attempted to stop the tanks with their own bare hands. I’ll see if I can find any photos. Those events in Mariupol and Odessa pushed most people over the line and became a massive recruitment drive for the newly created Donbass People’s Militias, which aimed to stop Ukrainian forces from advancing further into Donbass.
In June, the first Ukrainian airstrike on a Donbass city hit the Lugansk regional administration building, killing 13 people. At that point, federalisation within Ukraine was no longer seen as viable, and we have been at war ever since.
There is really no way to sum up the events of the past eleven years. Thousands have died. Due to the AFU’s targeting of civilians and the inclusion of anti-Russian neo-Nazi battalions, the popular opinion has long been that this is a genocide of us Russian-speaking and ethnic Russian or Russian-ethnicised people in the East. The Ukrainian military occupation of Donbass from the Minsk Agreements through to 2022 was marked by disappearances, murders, and general abuse of the population by the soldiers stationed there. The crime of separatism became punishable by 15 years in prison. Coming into 2022, only 14% of the Ukrainian population said they had a “somewhat favourable” view of Russian people. I don’t really want to explain anymore; I’m tired and this stuff distresses me LOL. But I’ll give you some links.
First and foremost I would recommend this post I complied of almost 50 links to articles about Donbass in the English Language from non Russian sources
And if you’re willing to endure genuinely God awful translation, the following documents are literally verified testimonies of survivors of the Genocide in Donbass
It won’t let me add anymore but those should be enough
