The Donbas (UK: /dɒnˈbɑːs/,[3] US: /ˈdɒnbɑːs, dʌnˈbæs/;[4][5] Ukrainian: Донбас [donˈbɑs];[6]) or Donbass (Russian: Донбасс [dɐnˈbas][7]) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine.

[16] In March 2014, following the Euromaidan protest movement and the resulting Revolution of Dignity, large swaths of the Donbas became gripped by pro-Russian and anti-government unrest.

Other large cities (over 100,000 inhabitants) include Mariupol, Luhansk, Makiivka, Horlivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Alchevsk, Sievierodonetsk, and Lysychansk.

[20] The region has been inhabited for centuries by various nomadic tribes, such as Scythians, Alans, Huns, Bulgars, Pechenegs, Kipchaks, Turco-Mongols, Tatars and Nogais.

[21] The first town in the region was founded in 1676, called Solanoye (now Soledar), which was built for the profitable business of exploiting newly discovered rock-salt reserves.

[24] At the end of the 18th century, many Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs and Greeks migrated to lands along the southern course of the Donets river, into an area previously inhabited by nomadic Nogais, who were nominally subject to the Crimean Khanate.

As the Industrial Revolution took hold across Europe, the vast coal resources of the region, discovered in 1721, began to be exploited in the mid-late 19th century.

[27] Donetsk, the most important city in the region today, was founded in 1869 by Welsh businessman John Hughes on the site of the old Zaporozhian Cossack town of Oleksandrivka.

With the development of Yuzovka and similar cities, large numbers of landless peasants from peripheral governorates of the Russian Empire came looking for work.

Ukrainians dominated rural areas, but cities were often inhabited solely by Russians who had come seeking work in the region's heavy industries.

[34] During the 1917–22 Russian Civil War, Nestor Makhno, who commanded the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, was the most popular leader in the Donbas.

During the reconstruction of the Donbas after the end of the Second World War, large numbers of Russian workers arrived to repopulate the region, further altering the population balance.

[41] As a result of the Russification policy, the Ukrainian population of the Donbass then declined drastically as ethnic Russians settled in the region in large numbers.

[46] This strike was followed by a 1994 consultative referendum on various constitutional questions in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, held concurrently with the first parliamentary elections in independent Ukraine.

Some subsidies to Donbas heavy industries were eliminated, and many mines were closed by the Ukrainian government because of liberalising reforms pushed for by the World Bank.

[50][51] Donetsk Mayor Oleksandr Lukyanchenko, however, stated that no one wanted autonomy, but rather sought to stop the Orange Revolution demonstrations going on at the time in Kyiv and negotiate a compromise.

Writing in the Narodne slovo newspaper in 2005, commentator Viktor Tkachenko said that the Donbas was home to "fifth columns", and that speaking Ukrainian in the region was "not safe for one's health and life".

The Donbas is home to a significantly higher number of cities and villages that were named after Communist figures compared to the rest of Ukraine.

[56] From the beginning of March 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in the Donbas, as part of the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and the Euromaidan movement.

These demonstrations, which followed the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and which were part of a wider group of concurrent pro-Russian protests across southern and eastern Ukraine, escalated in April 2014 into a war between the Russian-backed separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR respectively), and the Ukrainian government.

[66] In response to the deteriorating situation in the Donbas, Russia abandoned what has been called its "hybrid war" approach, and began a conventional invasion of the region.

[66][67] As a result of the Russian invasion, DPR and LPR insurgents regained much of the territory they had lost during the Ukrainian government's preceding military offensive.

[77] A UN OHCHR report released on 3 March 2016 stated that, since the conflict broke out in 2014, the Ukrainian government registered 1.6 million internally displaced people who had fled the Donbas to other parts of Ukraine.

At the time of the report, 2.7 million people were said to continue to live in areas under DPR and LPR control,[78] comprising about one-third of the Donbas.

[84] The plan would give Russian-backed political entities partial control of the electorate and has been described by Zerkalo Nedeli as "implanting a cancerous cell into Ukraine's body.

A 2018 survey by Sociological Group "Rating" of residents of the Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donbas found that 82% of respondents believed there was no discrimination against Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.

[90] Russia subsequently launched a new, full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, which Russian president Vladimir Putin said was intended to "protect" the people of the Donbas from the "abuse" and "genocide" of the Ukrainian government.

[105] Roman Horbyk of Södertörn University wrote that in the 20th century, "[a]s peasants from all surrounding regions were flooding its then busy mines and plants on the border of ethnically Ukrainian and Russian territories", "incomplete and archaic institutions" prevented Donbas residents from "acquiring a notably strong modern urban – and also national – new identity".

The region also produces consumer goods like household washing-machines, refrigerators, freezers, TV sets, leather footwear, and toilet soap.

The most common problems throughout the region include: Additionally, several chemical waste-disposal sites in the Donbas have not been maintained, and pose a constant threat to the environment.