LuhanskLuhansk (luːˈhænsk, -ˈhɑːn-; Луганськ, lʊˈɦɑnjsjk), also known as Lugansk (-ˈɡæn-, -ˈɡɑːn-; Луганск, lʊˈɡansk), is a city in the Donbas region, eastern Ukraine. As of 2022, the population was estimated to be making Luhansk the 12th-largest city in Ukraine. Luhansk served as the administrative center of Luhansk Oblast, before pro-Russian separatists seized control of the city in 2014 and made it the capital of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic.
Orange RevolutionThe Orange Revolution (Помаранчева революція) was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter intimidation and electoral fraud. Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, was the focal point of the movement's campaign of civil resistance, with thousands of protesters demonstrating daily.
Russian oligarchsRussian oligarchs (oligarkhi) are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials (mostly in Russia and Ukraine) as a means to acquire state property. The Russian oligarchs emerged as business entrepreneurs under Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary 1985–1991) during his period of market liberalization.
Ukrainian War of IndependenceThe Ukrainian War of Independence was a military conflict involving many parties from 1917 to 1921 which saw the establishment and development of an independent Ukrainian republic, most of which was later absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of 1922–1991. The war consisted of military conflicts between different governmental, political and military forces. Belligerents included Ukrainian nationalists, Ukrainian anarchists, the forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the White Russian Volunteer Army, and Second Polish Republic forces.
Party of RegionsThe Party of Regions (Partiia rehioniv, ˈpɑrt(j)ijɐ reɦiˈɔn(j)iu̯; Partiya regionov) is a banned pro-Russian political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 and then grown to be the biggest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014. Since the Revolution of Dignity, the party has not competed in elections and members have slowly dispersed; the last election the party participated in was the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election.
Abkhazia_Republic of Abkhazia Abkhazia (æbˈkɑːziə ), officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a partially recognised state in the South Caucasus, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It covers and has a population of around 245,000. Its capital and largest city is Sukhumi. The political status of Abkhazia is a central issue of the Abkhaz–Georgian conflict and Georgia–Russia relations.
UkrinformThe National News Agency of Ukraine (Українське національне інформаційне агентство), or Ukrinform (Укрінформ), is a state information and news agency, and international broadcaster of Ukraine. It was founded in 1918 during the Ukrainian War of Independence as the Bureau of Ukrainian Press (BUP). The first director of the agency was Dmytro Dontsov, when the agency name was The Ukrainian Telegraph Agency. Ukrinform is Ukraine's representative of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) and the Black Sea Association of National News Agencies (BSANNA).
Hybrid warfareHybrid warfare is a theory of military strategy, first proposed by Frank Hoffman, which employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare, and cyberwarfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare and foreign electoral intervention. By combining kinetic operations with subversive efforts, the aggressor intends to avoid attribution or retribution. The concept of hybrid warfare has been criticized by a number of academics and practitioners due to its alleged vagueness, its disputed constitutive elements, and its alleged historical distortions.
Unmanned combat aerial vehicleAn unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), also known as a combat drone, colloquially shortened as drone or battlefield UAV, is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is used for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance and carries aircraft ordnance such as missiles, ATGMs, and/or bombs in hardpoints for drone strikes. These drones are usually under real-time human control, with varying levels of autonomy. Unlike unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aerial vehicles, UCAVs are used for both drone strikes and battlefield intelligence.
Soviet patriotismSoviet patriotism is the socialist patriotism involving emotional and cultural attachment of the Soviet people to the Soviet Union as their homeland. It is also referred to as Soviet nationalism due to the country's reliance on patriotic propaganda. Socialist patriotism Stalin emphasized a centralist Soviet socialist patriotism that spoke of a collective "Soviet people" and identified Russians as being the "elder brothers of the Soviet people".