Lugansk: Road to Independence

‘At the beginning, we didn’t want to separate from Ukraine. We wanted to be a subject of Ukraine. To be a Ukrainian republic,’ says Sergey of the Lugansk People’s Republic militia. He has been in the militia for eight years, from the moment he realized the Maidan coup, which led to a change in the Ukrainian government, was a threat to the lives of all Russian-speaking people.

In 2014, the new Ukrainian government announced there was no place for Russian-speaking people in the country. The Lugansk and Donetsk regions asked for federalization, as they did not want to accept the new laws. Ukrainian nationalists answered with bullets and shelling. That was the moment the Donbass war started.

Today, the Lugansk People’s Republic is finally recognized as an independent state by the Russian Federation. Follow the eight years Lugansk has spent defending its independence in this new documentary.

Watch "Lugansk: Road to Independence" on RTD website and on RT's live feed. The time of the broadcast is available on RT's schedule page.