Luhansk Oblast (; ), also referred to as Luhanshchyna (), is the easternmost

oblast An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term ''oblast'' is often translated i ...

(province) of

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. Its administrative center is the city of

Luhansk Luhansk (, ; , ), also known as Lugansk (, ; , ), is a city in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. As of 2022, the population was estimated to be making Luhansk the Cities in Ukraine, 12th-largest city in Ukraine. Luhansk served as the administra ...

. The oblast was established in 1938 and bore the name ''Voroshilovgrad Oblast'' until 1958 and again from 1970 to 1991. It has a population of Important cities in Luhansk Oblast include Alchevsk, Antratsyt, Brianka, Kadiivka, Kirovsk, Krasnodon, Khrustalnyi, Luhansk, Lysychansk, Pervomaisk, Rovenky, Rubizhne, Sievierodonetsk and Sverdlovsk. All of the oblast is in the Donbas region. In 2014, large parts of the oblast, including the capital Luhansk, came under the control of Russian-backed separatists who declared the

Luhansk People's Republic The Luhansk People's Republic (LPR; , ) is a disputed territory administered as a republic of Russia in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast, with its capital in Luhansk. The LPR was proclaimed by Russian-backed paramilitar ...

, leading to a war against Ukrainian government forces. Since the 2022

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, the oblast has come almost entirely under Russian occupation and has been the scene of heavy fighting, which continues in some places. In late September 2022, Russia declared the annexation of the entire oblast, along with three others, though the annexation remains internationally unrecognized. As of September 2024, Ukraine is in control of 1.5% of the region, including a few settlements, such as Hrekivka and Tverdokhlibove. These areas continue to see active conflict.

Geography

Luhansk Oblast is in far eastern Ukraine. Its north–south length is 250 km, and east–west width 190 km. It covers an area of 26,700 km², 4.42% of the total area of Ukraine. The oblast has the longest segment of Ukraine's international border with Russia among other regions (''see State Border of Ukraine''), consisting of . The abutting Russian oblasts are

Belgorod Oblast Belgorod Oblast () is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (an oblast) of Russia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Belgorod. , the population is 1,540,486. History During the Princely ...

to the north,

Voronezh Oblast Voronezh Oblast is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Voronezh. Its population was 2,308,792 as of the Russian Census (2021), 20 ...

to the northeast,

Rostov Oblast Rostov Oblast ( rus, Росто́вская о́бласть, r=Rostovskaya oblastʹ, p=rɐˈstofskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in the Southern Federal District. The oblast ...

to the east. Abutting Ukrainian oblasts are

Kharkiv Oblast Kharkiv Oblast (, ), also referred to as Kharkivshchyna (), is an oblast (province) in eastern Ukraine. Kharkiv borders Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the southeast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the southwest, Poltava Oblast to the w ...

to the west, and

Donetsk Oblast Donetsk Oblast, also referred to as Donechchyna (, ), is an Oblasts of Ukraine, oblast in eastern Ukraine. It is Ukraine's most populous province, with around 4.1 million residents. Its capital city, administrative centre is Donetsk, though d ...

to the south. The region is located in the valley of the Siversky Donets river, which flows west to east through the oblast and splits it approximately in half. The southern portion of the region is elevated by the Donetsk Ridge, which is close to the southern border. The highest point is Mohyla Mechetna (), the highest point of Donetsk Ridge. The left bank of the Siversky Donets is part of the Starobilsk Plain. To the north this transforms into the Central Russian Upland.

History

The territory was formerly part of the Wild Fields, and former administrative units in the territory of the current oblast included

Sloboda Ukraine Sloboda Ukraine, also known locally as ''Slobozhanshchyna'' or ''Slobozhanshchina'', is a historical region in northeastern Ukraine and southwestern Russia. It developed from Belgorod Razriad and flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries on the ...

Slavo-Serbia Slavo-Serbia or Slaveno-Serbia was a territory of Imperial Russia from 1753 to 1764. It was located to the south of the Donets River, between the Bakhmutka River and Luhan River. This area today is located within present-day Luhansk Oblast a ...

Yekaterinoslav Governorate Yekaterinoslav Governorate} was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Yekaterinoslav. Covering an area of , and being composed of a inhabitant of 2,113,674 by the census of 1897, it bordere ...

, Donets Governorate and

Soviet Ukraine (1938–1991)

The oblast originated in 1938 as Voroshylovhrad (Russian: Voroshilovgrad) Oblast () after the Donetsk Oblast was split between Voroshylovhrad and Stalino (today

) oblasts. Following the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...

Starobilsk Starobilsk (; ) is a city in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Starobilsk Raion. The modern settlement was founded in 1686, and it was granted city status in 1938. The city has a population of As a result of the ...

was the location of a prisoner of war camp for Poles, who were then massacred in the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...

in 1940. After the invasion by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

in 1941, the region came under a German military administration, due to its proximity to frontlines. It was occupied at the end of 1942 as part of Case Blue German offensive directed towards

Stalingrad Volgograd,. geographical renaming, formerly Tsaritsyn. (1589–1925) and Stalingrad. (1925–1961), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. The city lies on the western bank of the Volga, covering an area o ...

. Soon after the battle of Stalingrad, the Luhansk (at that time Voroshilovgrad in honor of

Kliment Voroshilov Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov ( ; ), popularly known as Klim Voroshilov (; 4 February 1881 – 2 December 1969), was a prominent Soviet Military of the Soviet Union, military officer and politician during the Stalinism, Stalin era (1924–195 ...

) region again became the center of military operations during the Soviet counter-offensive operation Little Saturn in the spring of 1943. In the summer of 1943, the region was liberated from the Nazi Germany Armed Forces. During the Soviet era, the Oblast bore its current name between 1958 and 1970. In the December 1991 referendum, 83.86% of votes in the oblast were in favor of the

Declaration of Independence of Ukraine The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR (''Verkhovna Rada'') on 24 August 1991.annexation of Crimea by Russia, pro-Russian separatists occupying the Luhansk Oblast administrative building planned to declare the independence of the region as the Luhansk Parliamentary Republic, after other pro-Russian separatists declared

Donetsk People's Republic The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR; , ) is Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, occupied territory in Ukraine that the Russian Federation has claimed to annex and declared as a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia, comprising parts o ...

in the Donetsk Oblast (7 April 2014). When the Luhansk Parliamentary Republic ceased to exist, the separatists declared the

on 27 April 2014. They held a disputed referendum on separating from Ukraine on 11 May 2014. The legitimacy of the referendums was not recognized by any government. Ukraine does not recognize the referendum, while the EU and US said the polls were illegal and fraudulent. Subsequently, the war in Donbas began. As a result of the war in Donbas, Luhansk insurgents control the southern third of the oblast, which includes the city of

, the region's most populous city and the capital of the oblast. Due to this, most oblast government functions have moved to Sievierodonetsk, which forces of the Government of Ukraine recaptured in July 2014. Many universities located in the occupied areas have moved to government-controlled cities such as Sievierodonetsk,

or Rubizhne. A survey conducted in December 2014 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 5.7% of the oblast's population supported their region joining Russia, 84.1% did not support the idea, and the rest were undecided or did not respond. Insurgent-controlled areas were not polled.

Russian occupation (2022–present)

During the 2022

, Russian ground forces entered the occupied territory of Luhansk Oblast by crossing the Russian border on 22 February 2022. They invaded government-controlled territory across the line of contact and the Russian border on 24 February. As of 26 May 2022 they had occupied all but 5% of the region. During the mid-2022 battle of Donbas, Russian troops attacked and eventually captured the cities of Sieverodonetsk and Lysychansk during May and June 2022 in two of the most significant and most intense battles of the Eastern Ukraine offensive. By 3 July 2022, Russian and allied troops controlled all cities in the oblast. On 4–5 July 2022, during the international Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2022) in

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

, Finland,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, and the Czech Republic pledged to support the postwar rebuilding of the Luhansk region. On 11 September 2022, there were unconfirmed reports that Bilohorivka near Lysychansk, was recaptured. On 19 September 2022, Ukrainian forces confirmed this. In late September 2022, an annexation referendum was held in Luhansk on joining the Russian Federation, although Ukraine along with the United Nations and most observers declared the referendum to be illegitimate and fraudulent. Following the staged victory in the voting, the region and the so-called Luhansk People's Republic were absorbed into Russia. The

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...

subsequently passed a resolution calling on countries not to recognise what it described as an "attempted illegal annexation" and demanded that Russia "immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw". , nearly all of the oblast is occupied by Russia, which claims the oblast as the

(LPR), a self-declared state turned Russian federal subject. The war in Donbas and the subsequent 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine saw heavy fighting in the oblast, with Sievierodonetsk captured in June by Russian and LPR forces after an assault lasting several weeks, and the oblast's last major settlement under Ukrainian control, Lysychansk, captured by Russian and Russia-backed forces on 2 July. The next day, Russia's Minister of Defence announced that the entire territory of the oblast had been "liberated", but three weeks later the governor of the oblast reported heavy fighting was still ongoing. On 4 September, Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine and recaptured small parts of

and, on 1 October, Lyman. Ukrainian forces also pushed through the stalemate at the Luhansk Oblast border and, most notably, recaptured Bilohirivka while engaging LPR forces in Lysychansk. Since then, there has been continued fighting in the western parts of the region in a renewed Luhansk Oblast campaign.

Administrative subdivisions

Like the other provinces of Ukraine, Luhansk Oblast has a double jurisdiction. The oblast is predominantly administrated by the Luhansk Oblast State Administration, headed by the governor of the oblast, who is appointed by the

President of Ukraine The president of Ukraine (, ) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. ...

. The province has a representative body, the provincial council, which is headed by its chairman and elected by popular vote. The province is primarily divided into 18 ''

raion A raion (also spelt rayon) is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet states. The term is used for both a type of subnational entity and a division of a city. The word is from the French (meaning 'honeycomb, department'), and is c ...

s'' (districts), and 37 cities, including 14 cities of regional significance. The administrative center is

. These raions are listed below with their areas and populations.State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, Kyiv. The province's secondary division consists of various municipalities. Those municipalities may consist of one or more populated places. The municipalities are administratively subordinate to the raion in which they are located, with the exception of 14 cities subordinated directly to the oblast. The city of Luhansk is subdivided into its own four city-districts (boroughs). All subdivisions are governed by their respective councils (''radas'').

Cities

Demographics

The population is largely Russian-speaking, although ethnic

Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

constitute a majority (58.0%). Among the minorities are native Russians (39.1%), Belarusians (0.8%), and others (1.4%). Ukrainians constitute the majority in all raions except for Stanytsia-Luhanska Raion and Krasnodon Raion, both of which are east of Luhansk. Ethnic

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

also constitute the majority in regionally significant cities, such as Krasnodon, Sverdlovsk, Khrustalnyi and Kadiivka. In the 2001 Ukrainian Census, more than 68.8% of the population considered themselves Russian speakers, while 30.0% considered themselves Ukrainian speakers. The Russophone population predominates in the southern portion of the region and around the city of Luhansk, while the northern region is less populated, mostly agricultural and Ukrainophone. Its population (as of 2004) of 2,461,506 constitutes 5.13% of the overall Ukrainian population. The Luhansk Oblast rates fifth in Ukraine by the number of its inhabitants, having an average population density of 90.28/km². About 87% of the population lives in urban areas, while the remaining 13% reside in agricultural areas. Age structure : ''0–14 years:'' 12.3% (male 143,272/female 134,803) : ''15–64 years:'' 71.4% (male 768,544/female 838,639) : ''65 years and over:'' 16.3% (male 117,782/female 248,914) (2013 official) Median age : ''total:'' 42.1 years : ''male:'' 38.2 years : ''female:'' 45.9 years (2013 official)

Economy

Economically the region is connected with the Donets Basin. Extractive industry * Lysychansk Coal * Luhansk Coal * Sverdlov Anthracite * Anthracite * Pervomaisk Coal * Rovenky Anthracite * Donbas Anthracite Machine building * Luhanskteplovoz * Khrustalnyi Machine building Factory * Pervomaisk Power mechanical Factory * Stakhanov Railcar Plant Metallurgy * Alchevsk Metallurgy Combine * Alchevsk Coke-chemical Factory Chemicals and oil refining * Sievierodonetsk Association Azot * Association Skloplastyk * Lysynchansk Oil Refinery Agriculture The oblast has post industrial sites which run off building material into surrounding land. Yakymchuk 2018 finds

feral A feral (; ) animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in som ...

stands of '' Triticum aestivum'' have colonised several of these sites. * Derkul Horse Factory Power generation * Sievierodonetsk Power Station * Luhansk power station * Shteriv power station (decommissioned in 1983)

Transport

Through the region pass two major European routes and . There are 24 Russo-Ukrainian international

border checkpoint A border checkpoint is a location on an international border where travelers or goods are inspected and allowed (or denied) passage through. Authorization often is required to enter a country through its borders. Access-controlled borders of ...

s of various entry. * within the Luhansk Oblast uses highway that starts from Debaltseve (

), passes through the city of Khrustalnyi, and enters the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

at the border checkpoint "Dovzhansky" (settlement Dovzhanske, town of Biryukove). * within the Luhansk Oblast uses highway that starts from Debaltseve (

), passes through the city of

, and enters the

at the border checkpoint "Izvaryne" (town of Izvaryne). * There is also another highway that runs from north to south and connects

, and Khrustalnyi with

Donetsk Donetsk ( , ; ; ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin, and Stalino, is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine located on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Russia as the capita ...

. Rail transportation is administered by the Donetsk Railway. There is also its regional airport Luhansk International Airport with its own carrier.

Education

* East Ukrainian National University * University of Luhansk * Donbas State Technical University Specialized * Luhansk State Medical University * Luhansk National Agrarian University * Luhansk State University of Internal Affairs

Points of interest

The following sites were nominated for the Seven Wonders of Ukraine. * The house of Dal's birth (Luhansk) * Fighters for the Revolution monument * Derkul horse factory * Royal Rocks (Luhansk State Preserve) * Chasm Steppe ( Sverdlovsk Raion) * Ram Foreheads (limestone rocks) * Mścichowski Palace ()

Notable people

* Oleksiy Danilov (born 1962), Ukrainian politician * Dov Markus (born 1946), Israeli-American soccer player, born in Ukraine. * Serhiy Zhadan (born 1974), writer.

Gallery

File:Seleznivka.jpg, Mścichowski Palace, Seleznivka File:Vladimir Dal's house in Luhansk.jpg, Dal's house in

File:Syevyerodonetsk 22.jpg, Palace of Culture, Sievierodonetsk File:MQA-VS.jpg, Dovzhenka Street, Lysychansk File:Donec near shepilovo.JPG, Siverskyi Donets near Shepilivka File:Mist over a river in Luhansk.jpg, Mist over the Luhanka River File:2010-10-22-iljenko-with-leonas 014.jpg, Landscape in the Derkulskyi File:2010-perevalsk-reserve.jpg, Perevalsk General Zoological Reserve

Notes

References

External links

Official site of Luhansk Oblast Administration

Information Card of the Region
– official site of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine {{Authority control 1938 establishments in Ukraine Donbas Oblasts of Ukraine States and territories established in 1938