Donbass. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

It’s been eleven years since a NATO and others -inspired coup divided Ukraine and war erupted in the country’s east. The Donetsk and Lugansk republics, next to Russia's border, are collectively known as Donbass, a coal-mining industrial center. The two declared independence from Kiev in 2014, and civil war erupted.
There are mass graves scattered across Donbass, from which bodies of civilians are regularly exhumed. Yet, while the shelling and killings continued, Western media remained silent. According to UN estimates, over 13,000 (up to the beginning of the SMO in 2022) people have been killed in the conflict.