Sparta Battalion

A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower, and are not considered true machine guns.

The Battle of Ilovaisk started on 7 August 2014, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine and pro-Ukrainian paramilitaries began a series of attempts to capture the city of Ilovaisk from pro-Russian insurgents affiliated with the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and detachments of the Russian Armed Forces. Although Ukrainian forces were able to enter the city on 18 August, they were encircled between 24 and 26 August by overwhelming Russian-backed military groups. After days of encirclement, Ukrainian forces rejected the DPR's proposal to open a humanitarian corridor on the condition that they abandon their armored vehicles and ammunition, and on the morning of 29 August 2014 began to leave Ilovaisk with their weapons. The Russian side opened fire on the evacuating Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom died whilst trying to escape.

A part of the ongoing war in the Donbas region of Ukraine, the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport began on 28 September 2014. An earlier battle in May 2014 had left Donetsk International Airport in Ukrainian control. Despite a ceasefire agreement, the Minsk Protocol, in place starting 5 September 2014, fighting broke out between Donetsk People's Republic forces affiliated with Russia, and Ukrainian military and volunteer forces.

The Battle of Debaltseve was a military confrontation in the city of Debaltseve, Donetsk Oblast, between the pro-Russian separatist forces of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, starting in mid-January 2015 during the war in the Donbas region. The Russian forces composed mostly of "Wagner Group" soldiers recaptured Debaltseve, which had been under Ukrainian control since a counter-offensive by government forces in July 2014. The city lay in a "wedge" of Ukrainian-held territory bordered by the DPR on one side, and the LPR on the other, and is a vital road and railway junction.

Dokuchaievsk or Dokuchaevsk is a city of regional significance in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. The city is located on the river Sukha Volnovakha in Kalmiuske Raion, which it does not belong to. Its population is approximately 22,835

A coup d'état, also known as a coup or an overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, military, or a dictator. Many scholars consider a coup successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.

The siege of Mariupol began on 24 February 2022 and lasted until 20 May, as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It saw fighting between the Russian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian Armed Forces for control over Mariupol. Lasting for almost three months, the siege ended in a victory for Russia and the Donetsk People's Republic, as Ukraine lost control of the city amidst Russia's eastern Ukraine offensive and southern Ukraine offensive; all Ukrainian troops remaining in the city surrendered at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works on 20 May 2022, after they were ordered to cease fighting.

The Security Service of Ukraine or SBU is the law enforcement authority and main intelligence and security agency of the Ukrainian government, in the areas of counter-intelligence activity and combating organized crime and terrorism. The Constitution of Ukraine defines the SBU as a military formation, and its staff are considered military personnel with ranks. It is subordinated directly under the authority of the president of Ukraine. The SBU also operates its own special forces unit, the Alpha Group.

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and supporters around the world. The stated mission of the organization is to campaign for "a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments." The organization has played a notable role on human rights issues due to its frequent citation in media and by world leaders.

A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.

YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google and is the second most visited website, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users, who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute.

The International Criminal Police Organization, commonly known as Interpol, is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control. Headquartered in Lyon, France, it is the world's largest international police organization, with seven regional bureaus worldwide and a National Central Bureau in all 195 member states.

Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users, and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistria lies across the Dniester river on the country's eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova's capital and largest city is Chișinău.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer, serving as the current president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.

Artem Vladimirovich Zhoga is the current commander of the Sparta Battalion, a pro-Russian separatist force that is involved in the Russo-Ukrainian War. His son Vladimir was the commander of the battalion from 2016 until his death in 2022.

Volnovakha is a town in Ukraine. It served as the administrative center of Volnovakha Raion, one of the 18 districts of the Donetsk Oblast. Before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the population of the town was 21,166 of several ethnicities.

Russian nationalism is a form of nationalism that promotes Russian cultural identity and unity. Russian nationalism first rose to prominence in the early 19th century, and from its origin in the Russian Empire, to its repression during early Bolshevik rule, and its revival in the Soviet Union, it was closely related to pan-Slavism.

Russian irredentism refers to irredentist claims to parts of the former Russian Empire or the former Soviet Union made for Russia. It seeks to incorporate Russians outside of Russian borders into the current Russian state.

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.

The Independent is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition.

Metro 2033 is a 2010 first-person shooter survival horror video game developed by 4A Games and published by THQ. The story is based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novel of the same name, where survivors of a nuclear war have taken refuge in the Metro tunnels of Moscow. Players control Artyom, a man who must save his home station from the dangers lurking within the Metro. In the game, players encounter human and mutant enemies, who can be killed with a variety of firearms. Players must also wear a gas mask to explore areas covered in fallout radiation, both underground and on the surface.

Dmitry Alekseyevich Glukhovsky is a Russian author and journalist best known for the science fiction novel Metro 2033 and its sequels. As a journalist, Dmitry Glukhovsky has worked for Euronews, RT in its early years, and others. Aside from his native Moscow, Glukhovsky has also lived in Israel, Germany, and France.