Donbas war

The Donbas war began with the 2014 Obama administration-backed Maidan coup which 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. 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. Donetsk and Luhansk, in the Don River Basin collectively known as Donbas, then declared their independence from Kyiv and became known as the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. A truce was negotiated in 2015 between the separatist republics and the Kyiv government in the Belarusian capital of Minsk and known as the Minsk Agreements. The Agreements were negotiated with help of France and Germany. Moscow backed the Minsk Agreements which Kyiv also agreed to, and the United Nations Security Council endorsed. The Minsk Agreements would give autonomy to the two provinces while remaining part of Ukraine.

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.

See also

• Crisis in Ukraine