You're reading: Moscow Times: Donbass’ roots of violent division

 When President Vladimir Putin described Donetsk as "Novorossia" in his call-in show late last week and stressed the region's ties to Russia, he left out the fact that the region's capital was actually founded by a Welsh engineer and entrepreneur named John Hughes.

"This is Novorossia: Kharkov, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odessa did not belong to Ukraine in tsarist times," Putin said. "All these territories were transferred to Ukraine in the 1920s by the Soviet government. God knows why."

But what exactly is Donbass, where armed separatists are so determined to create their own autonomous state?

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