Denis Pushilin

Makiivka ; Russian: Макеевка, romanized: Makeyevka, IPA: [mɐˈkʲe(j)ɪfkə]), formerly Dmytriivsk, is an industrial city in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, located 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) east from the capital Donetsk. The two cities are practically a conurbation. Makiivka is a leading metallurgical and coal-mining centre of the Donets Basin, with heavy industry and coking plants supporting the local steel and coal industries. While internationally recognized as part of Ukraine, the city has been under Russian occupation since its capture by Russian forces in 2014. It has a population of 338,968 .

The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, or UkSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. In the anthem of the Ukrainian SSR, it was referred to simply as Ukraine. Under the Soviet one-party model, the Ukrainian SSR was governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through its republican branch, the Communist Party of Ukraine.

The National Guard of Ukraine is the Ukrainian national gendarmerie and internal military force. It is part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, responsible for public security. Originally created as an agency under the direct control of the Verkhovna Rada on 4 November 1991, following Ukrainian independence, it was later disbanded and merged into the Internal Troops of Ukraine in 2000 by then-President Leonid Kuchma as part of a "cost-saving" scheme. Following the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, amidst the Russian intervention, the National Guard was re-established, and the Internal Troops were disbanded.

Donbas National Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture is one of the largest engineering universities in Ukraine. It was founded on 1 January 1972 as the Makiivka Civil Engineering Institute.

A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity, and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.

МММ was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes of all time, in the 1990s. By different estimates from 5 to 10 million people lost their savings. According to contemporary Western press reports, most investors were aware of the fraudulent nature of the scheme, but still hoped to profit from it by withdrawing money before it collapsed.

Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi was a Russian financial fraudster, financial criminal and previously a deputy of the State Duma. He was the founder of the МММ, a scheme that defrauded millions of people around the globe.

Ukrainian is an East Slavic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the native language of the Ukrainians.

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a former politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 until he was removed from office in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, after months of protests against his presidency. From 2006 to 2007 he was the prime minister of Ukraine; he also served in this post from November 2002 to January 2005, with a short interruption in December 2004. He currently lives in exile in Russia, where he has lived since his removal from office in 2014.

Parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on 28 October 2012. Because of various reasons, including the "impossibility of announcing election results" various by-elections have taken place since. Hence, several constituencies have been left unrepresented at various times.

Obukhiv is a city in Kyiv Oblast (province) of Ukraine and the administrative center of Obukhiv Raion. It hosts the administration of Obukhiv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population: 33,287 . In 2001, the population was 32,776.

From the end of February 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in major cities across the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the success of Euromaidan in ousting then-President Viktor Yanukovych. The unrest, supported by Russia in the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War, has been referred to in Russia as the "Russian Spring".

Pavel Yuryevich Gubarev is a Russian political figure and soldier who proclaimed himself the "People's Governor" of the Donetsk Region at the Regional Assembly on 3 March 2014, after separatists seized the building. Gubarev had earlier declared himself leader of the Donbas People's Militia. Since then, he has been sidelined by other separatist leaders and was banned from taking part in the 2014 Donbas parliamentary elections. These elections also eliminated the post of "People's Governor". Gubarev was not a figure in local politics prior to the beginning of the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine.

The Crimean status referendum of 2014 was a disputed referendum on March 16, 2014, concerning the status of Crimea that was conducted in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol after Russian forces seized control of Crimea.

The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of 4,233,255.3 km2 (1,634,469.0 sq mi) and an estimated total population of nearly 447 million. The EU has often been described as a sui generis political entity combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi), Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. Its southern and western border with the United States is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of Norway. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a dependency of Norway; it also lays claims to the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. The capital and largest city in Norway is Oslo.

Liechtenstein, officially the Principality of Liechtenstein, is a German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. It is the sixth smallest nation worldwide. Liechtenstein is a semi-constitutional monarchy headed by the prince of Liechtenstein.

The Donetsk People's Republic is an unrecognised republic of Russia in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, with its capital in Donetsk. The DPR was created by militarily-armed Russian-backed separatists in 2014, and it initially operated as a breakaway state until it was annexed by Russia in 2022.

The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. It also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. Covering an area of approximately 22,800,000 square kilometres (8,800,000 sq mi), it remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire; it ruled over a population of 125.6 million people per the 1897 Russian census, the only census carried out during the entire imperial period. Owing to its geographic extent across three continents at its peak, it featured great ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic diversity.

Moscow is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million residents within the city limits, over 17 million residents in the urban area, and over 21.5 million residents in the metropolitan area. The city covers an area of 2,511 square kilometers (970 sq mi), while the urban area covers 5,891 square kilometers (2,275 sq mi), and the metropolitan area covers over 26,000 square kilometers (10,000 sq mi). Moscow is among the world's largest cities; being the most populous city entirely in Europe, the largest urban and metropolitan area in Europe, and the largest city by land area on the European continent.

Andrei Yevgenyevich Purgin is a Ukrainian activist, cofounder of the Donetsk Republic organization along with Aleksandr Tsurkan and Oleg Frolov. Until 4 September 2015 he was the Chairman of the People's Council of the (disputed) Donetsk People's Republic.