Eastern Ukrainian dissatisfaction with the government can also be attributed to the Euromaidan Protests which began in November 2013,[21] as well as Russian support[22] due to tension in Russia–Ukraine relations over Ukraine's geopolitical orientation.

[78] On the day after the referendum, the People's Soviet of the DPR proclaimed Donetsk to be a sovereign state with an indefinite border and asked Russia "to consider the issue of our republic's accession into the Russian Federation".

[83][84] The DPR adopted a memorandum on 5 February 2015, declaring itself the successor to the Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic and Bolshevik revolutionary Fyodor Sergeyev—better known by his alias "Artyom"—as the country's founding father.

[87] According to the agreement, amendments to the Ukrainian constitution should be introduced, including "the key element of which is decentralisation" and the holding of elections in the LPR and DPR within the lines of the Minsk Memorandum.

[87][88] In an effort to stabilise the ceasefire in the region, particularly the disputed and strategically important town of Debaltseve, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for a UN-led peacekeeping operation in February 2015 to monitor compliance with the Minsk agreement.

[105] In July 2016, over a thousand people, mainly small business owners, protested in Horlivka against corruption and taxes, which included charging customs fees on imported goods.

[114] In January 2021, the DPR and LPR stated in a "doctrine Russian Donbas" that they aimed to seize all of the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast under control by the Ukrainian government "in the near future".

[130][131] On 19 April 2022, a town hall assembly was reportedly organized in Russian-occupied Rozivka, where a majority of attendees (mainly seniors) voted by hand to join the Donetsk People's Republic.

"[136] Human rights activists reported a huge – up to 30,000 people as of August 2022 – death toll among mobilized recruits in clashes with the well-trained Armed Forces of Ukraine.

[139] On 30 September 2022, Russia's president Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of the DPR along with the Luhansk People's Republic and two other oblasts of Ukraine in an address to both houses of the Russian parliament.

[157] The districts are as follows: Oleksandrovka, Amvrosievka, Artyomovsk, Velyka Novosyolka, Volnovakha, Volodarskoye, Dobropolye, Konstantinovka, Krasnoarmeysk, Krasnyi Lyman, Kurakhovo, Mangush, Novoazovsk, Slaviansk, Starobeshevo, Telmanovo, Shakhtarsk, and Yasynuvata.

[162] Meanwhile, the previous favourable view of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the DPR press was replaced with personal accusations of genocide and "crimes against Donbas", and proposals of organising a tribunal against him in absentia.

[164] Deputy Kremlin Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak stated in a July 2021 interview with Politique internationale that 470,000 local residents had received Russian passports; he added that as soon as the situation in Donbass is resolved ....The general procedure for granting citizenship will be restored.

[168] The award Hero of the Donetsk People's Republic (Russian: Герой Донецкой Народной Республики) was bestowed on OSCE monitors met with the self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk, Volodymyr Pavlenko, on 20 June 2014.

[200] According to a 2016 report by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Russian ethnic and imperialist nationalism has shaped the official ideology of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.

[202] Journalist Andrew Kramer observed that the DPR had effectively institutionalized nostalgia for the Soviet Union in the territories under its control, and reintroduced some socialist state policies, including the nationalization of the mining industry and commercial agriculture.

[210] In July 2015, the head of the Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, said at a press conference that he respected Ukraine's far-right party Right Sector "when they beat up the gays in Kyiv and when they tried to depose Poroshenko".

[223] On 21 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed agreements on friendship, cooperation, and assistance with DPR and the LPR, coinciding with Russia's official recognition of the two quasi-states.

According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, a number of European politicians from extreme-right and extreme-left have received all-expenses-paid trips to the Donetsk People's Republic.

The Lansing Institute for Global Threats and Democracies Studies acquired a memorandum of cooperation between the DPR and the far-right Russian Imperial Movement, which trains foreign volunteers; including members of the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division and Der Dritte Weg.

[238][239][240][241][242] In addition to recruiting, Janus Putkonen also runs the Russian-funded DONi (Donbass International News Agency) and MV-media, which publish pro-Russian propaganda about the DPR.

[181] Sources (who declined to be identified, citing security concerns) inside the DPR administration have told Bloomberg News that Russia transfers 2.5 billion Russian rubles ($37 million) for pensions every month.

[253] By mid-February 2016 Russia had sent 48 humanitarian convoys to rebel-held territory that were said to have delivered more than 58,000 tons of cargo including food, medicines, construction materials, diesel generators and fuel and lubricants.

Lacking private banks, its own currency, and direct access to the Black Sea, DPR's survival depends exclusively on Russia's economic support and trade through the common border.

[262][263] On 2 July 2015, Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn announced that he "did not expect" that Ukraine would supply natural gas to territory controlled by separatist troops in the 2015–2016 heating season.

[266] On 18 April 2015, Prime Minister Zakharchenko issued a decree stating that all equipment given up by Kyivstar fell under the control of the separatists in order to "meet the needs of the population in the communication services".

[282][283] A report by the OHCHR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that was released on 2 March 2015 described media postings and online videos which indicated that the pro-Russian armed groups of the DPR carried out "summary, extrajudicial or arbitrary executions" of captured Ukrainian soldiers.

In one incident, corpses of Ukrainian servicemen were found with "their hands tied with white electrical cable" after the pro-Russian rebel groups captured Donetsk International Airport.

[295] The chief rabbi of Donetsk Pinchas Vishedski stated that the flyer was a fake meant to discredit the self-proclaimed republic,[296] and saying that anti-Semitic incidents in eastern Ukraine are "rare, unlike in Kyiv and western Ukraine"[297] and believes the men were 'trying to use the Jewish community in Donetsk as an instrument in the conflict;'[298] however, he also called the DPR Press Secretary Aleksander Kriakov "the most famous anti-Semite in the region" and questioned DPR's decision to appoint him.

[316] An 18 November 2014 United Nations report on eastern Ukraine stated that the DPR violated the rights of Ukrainian-speaking children because schools in rebel-controlled areas teach only in Russian and forbid pupils to speak Ukrainian.