Donbas war

The Donbas war began in 2014 when the Obama administration-backed Maidan coup overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine. President Viktor Yanukovych's election had been certified by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He was the first democratically elected official overthrown in a violent revolution in recent memory. The U.S.-backed coup was accomplished with the aid of anti-Russian neo-Nazis in Ukraine. It was an unconstitutional regime change.

Crimea held a referendum and rejoined Russia rather than live under an illegal government. However, Russia did not accept the results of the Donetsk and Lugansk referendums in the Don River Basin, collectively known as Donbas. Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence from Kyiv and became known as the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. The Kyiv regime tried to retake the two separatist provinces.

A truce was negotiated between the two separatist Republics and the Kyiv regime in 2015 in the Belarusian capital of Minsk and known as the Minsk Agreements. The Agreements were negotiated with the help of France and Germany. Moscow backed the Minsk Agreements which Kyiv also agreed to, and the United Nations Security Council endorsed the agreements as well. The Minsk Agreements would give autonomy to the two provinces while remaining part of Ukraine. However the Ukraine regime did nothing to further implement the agreements after 2015, and only a ceasefire remained in place.

Allegations of genocide

In February 2022 Russia accused Ukraine's military of committing "crimes against residents of the eastern Donbas region" in a report filed with the United Nations. The Russian news outlet Sputnik reported that the Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal investigation after the discovery of mass graves of civilians in Donbass. "The remains of at least 295 civilians who died as a result of indiscriminate shelling by Ukrainian armed forces in 2014 were exhumed from them. It is already known that among the remains there are bodies of women of different ages," a statement from the committee said. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the events in Donbass a "genocide," saying that the Ukrainian government continues to violate human rights, including by legalizing the discrimination of the Russian-speaking population in the country. On January 16, 2022 Tass reported that Ukraine mandated all print media are to switch to the Ukrainian language.