War in Donbas

The War in Donbas erupted in April 2014 in the aftermath of Ukraine's Euromaidan revolution and Russia's annexation of Crimea. Armed groups, supported and increasingly staffed by Russian personnel and equipment, seized government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and proclaimed the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). The Ukrainian government launched what it termed an "Anti-Terrorist Operation" (ATO), later reorganized in 2018 as the Joint Forces Operation.

Key military episodes included the Battle of Ilovaisk (August 2014) and the Battle of Debaltseve (January–February 2015), both Ukrainian defeats widely attributed in part to direct Russian military involvement, which Moscow officially denied. The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over separatist-held territory on 17 July 2014, killing 298 people, drew global attention; a Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team later concluded the missile was fired from a Russian Buk system, and in 2022 a Dutch court convicted three men in absentia.

Diplomatic efforts produced the Minsk Protocol (September 2014) and Minsk II package (February 2015), brokered in the Normandy Format by France and Germany alongside Russia and Ukraine. The agreements called for ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, prisoner exchanges, constitutional reform granting special status to parts of Donbas, and restoration of Ukrainian control over the border. Implementation stalled, and low-intensity fighting along the contact line continued for years, monitored by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (deployed March 2014, terminated March 2022).

By early 2022, the UN estimated more than 14,000 conflict-related deaths since 2014. On 21 February 2022, Russia recognized the DPR and LPR as independent states; three days later it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, effectively merging the Donbas war into the broader Russo-Ukrainian War. Russia formally claimed annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in September 2022, a move rejected by the UN General Assembly in Resolution ES-11/4.