ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a crucial link between discussion of the origins and early developments of the conflict between late 2013 and mid-2014, and the examination of the more focused and systematic state-building efforts undertaken by Moscow from summer 2014 onwards. One of the striking features of identity in Ukraine for many years has been the importance of local and regional identities alongside a national identity and the comparatively easy ‘co-existence’ of these multiple, layered identities. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Donetsk province of Ukraine became a part of so-called ‘red belt’ – a number of Ukrainian provinces in which a leftist ideology dominated and manifested itself in persistently strong electoral performances of communist and socialist parties. Identity-building efforts in Donbas before the outbreak of the crisis in late 2013 were entirely domestically focused and aimed at the consolidation of a local electorate during the Ukrainian elections behind political parties controlled by locally dominant elites.
