www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/21/what-is-donbas-donetsk-luhansk-conflict/
Donetsk & Luhansk areas are incredibly complex and divided.
Separatists claim all of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as their territory, but they control about one-third of the region — about 6,500 square miles, per some estimates — along the border with Russia. Moscow has recognized the separatists’ territorial claims, which extend to three times the size of the area they occupy. This includes areas under Ukrainian government control, such as the crucial Mariupol port on the Sea of Azov.
The most recent official census, in 2001, found that more than half of the population in Crimea and Donetsk identified Russian as their native language. But pinning eastern Ukraine as all largely Russian speaking, and the West dominated by Ukrainian, can be seen as an oversimplification. Many in the eastern countryside speak Ukrainian or a Russian-Ukrainian mix called Surzhyk.
Still, Putin has repeatedly invoked the idea of Donbas’s distinctive regional identity as a basis to “defend” its Russian-speaking people from a supposedly intolerant Ukraine. Separatists have also capitalized on this identity to fuel support and rebellion against Kyiv.
In Kyiv-controlled Donbas, a majority wants the separatist regions to return to Ukraine. In the separatist-controlled area, over half want to join Russia, either with or without some autonomous status, per a survey published in 2021.