section_path: Background/Pro-Russian protests
section_name: Pro-Russian protests
paragraph_text: Pro-Russian protests
  
  From late February 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian, separatist and counter-revolutionary groups took place in several cities in eastern and southern Ukraine. The first protests were largely native expressions of discontent with the new Ukrainian government. On 23 February, Ukraine's parliament adopted a bill to revoke the status of Russian as an official state language. The bill was not enacted, but the proposal caused anger in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine. These regions mostly consumed Russian-based media, which promoted the narrative that Ukraine's new government was an illegitimate "fascist junta" and that ethnic Russians were in imminent danger.
  
  Most of the protests were in the Donbas region. A national survey held in March–April 2014 found that 54% of respondents in the Donbas expressed various degrees of separatism, including 31% who wanted the region to completely separate from Ukraine.
  
  Russia used the protests to launch a campaign of political warfare, information warfare, and irregular warfare against Ukraine. Leaked e-mails and telephone calls later revealed that the Russian state had funded the separatists and had organized separatist protests, mainly through Kremlin advisers Vladislav Surkov and Sergey Glazyev. Ukrainian authorities arrested local separatist leaders in early March. Those leaders were replaced by men with ties to the Russian security services and interests in Russian businesses.
  
  On 6 April 2014, hundreds of masked men stormed and seized weapons from the Security Service buildings in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. Protesters then stormed and occupied the Donetsk regional government headquarters, raising the Russian flag and demanding a referendum on joining Russia. The next day, the activists held a meeting in the building and proclaimed the " Donetsk People's Republic " an independent state. On 29 April, armed pro-Russian activists stormed and occupied the Luhansk regional government headquarters, proclaiming the " Luhansk People's Republic ".