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Road to Freedom: 10th Anniversary of People Power in the Donbass

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Exactly ten years ago, at the height of a Ukrainian political crisis brought on by a US-sponsored coup in Kiev, Donetsk residents opposed to the new regime proclaimed the Donetsk People's Republic. Lugansk followed suit shortly after. How did it all happen? Check out Sputnik's infographic.
On April 7, 2014, Donbass residents would begin their long, difficult journey home to Russia with the proclamation of people’s republics. That day the Donetsk People’s Republic was proclaimed, followed by the Lugansk People's Republic on April 27.
The February 2014 Euromaidan coup in Kiev would prove one of the most consequential events of the 21st century, triggering a political and security crisis in Ukraine, a broader crisis in relations between Moscow and the West, and ultimately - a full-fledged proxy war in the heart of Europe between Russia and NATO in Ukraine.
In the spring of 2014, residents of Kharkov, the Donbass, Zaporozhye, Kherson, Nikolayev and Odessa came out en masse to protest the radical pronouncements made by the new authorities in the Ukrainian capital - including a decision to scrap a law allowing regions to use Russian as an official second language, and steps to decouple Ukraine from economic, cultural and other ties with Russia, which had been built up over centuries.
Nowhere was the protest more pronounced than in Donetsk and Lugansk - the easternmost regions of Ukraine historically referred to as the economic and industrial "Heart of Russia". Between April and May of 2014, Donetsk and Lugansk residents organized self-governing administrations and people's militias, proclaimed the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, and held status referendums, in which an overwhelming majority of residents voted in favor of independence from Ukraine. The Kiev regime responded with an 'anti-terrorist operation' in the Donbass to try to crush the fledgling independence movement, but only wound up strengthening the republics' resolve to stay free.
For more details on the process by which the Donbass gained its independence, check out our infographic:
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