Donbasification: How Russia Manufactured an Identity

In this 2-part series, Kate Turska traces how "Donbas," once a Soviet-era economic term for a coal and steel basin, was transformed into a supposed separate identity. Drawing on decades of forced Russification and the 1991 independence referendum, she shows how genuine regional differences were exaggerated into a fault line – one Russia would later exploit to justify its 2014 invasion.