The eight districts are: Until 2020, Luhansk Oblast was subdivided into 32 regions: 18 districts (raions) and 14 city municipalities (mis'krada or misto), officially known as territories governed by city councils.
[3] In 2014, in Luhansk Oblast the War in Donbass started.
As a result, part of the area was controlled by the Ukrainian government, whereas the rest was controlled by the forces of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR).
In particular, several raions and city municipalities were split between the government-controlled and LPR-controlled areas.
To facilitate the governance, the Verkhovna Rada on 7 October 2014 made some changes in the administrative divisions, so that the localities in the government-controlled areas were grouped into districts.