About Novorossiya

Novorossia (Russian: Новоро́ссия, Ukrainian: Новоросія, Romanian: Noua Rusie; literally New Russia) was a historical term denoting an area north of the Black Sea, presently part of Russia and Ukraine. The region was conquered by the Russian Empire at the end of the 18th century from the Ottoman Empire and remained under its control until the October Revolution and the collapse of the empire in 1917. In modern terms this historic territory overlaid what is now Donetsk Oblast, small portions of Luhansk Oblast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Zaporizhia Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast, Odessa Oblast and Crimea in Ukraine, Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, Rostov Oblast, and the Republic of Adygea in Russia. (...) In a 1994 interview, the head of the separatist state of Transnistria in Moldova stated that the state was "an inalienable part of the Russian state's southern regions" including Odessa, Crimea, and other Ukrainian oblasts, which were collectively part of the Novorossiya region. Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote that in 2003 some Russian academics discussed the idea of a pro-Russia Novorossiya state being formed out of southern Ukraine in response to moves towards bringing Ukraine into NATO. On April 17, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin used the term during his annual call-in show for residents of the Russian Federation, in connection to Novorossiya administrative area (Russian: Новороссийская область) that existed during Russian Empire and after that in civil war from 1919 until it was given in a march of 1920 to Ukrainian Soviet Republic and was never before part of Ukraine.Putin admits Crimea troops were his, calls east Ukraine 'new Russia'. Protesters in eastern Ukraine also used the term for south and east ("South-East") of Ukraine. Polish defense minister Tomasz Siemoniak worried that Putin might be pursuing a new doctrine aimed at a recreation of the Soviet Union as "New Russia". Putin's definition of Novorossiya, however, was historically inaccurate in that it conflicted with and was more expansive than the original definition; he seemed to include the cities of Kharkiv and Luhans'k in his definition of "Novorossiya," while they were never part of its original territory. Also, he claimed during the call-in show that "only God knows" why Novorossiya was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR in 1922. On 24 May 2014, a day before the Ukrainian presidential elections, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic signed a document announcing their intention to unite as the Union of Peoples Republics also referred to as the Union of Novorossiya, the Novorossiya Union or simply as Novorossiya. This would not constitute a single state immediately as the two republics would continue to function as two independent/ autonomous republics until practical issues of everyday government were resolved. They also invited other regions of South Eastern Ukraine to join Novorossiya in the future.

[Wikipedia]