Wikipedia
Novorossiya or New Russia , also referred to as the Union of People's Republics , was a proposed confederation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine, both of which share a border with Russia. Within Ukraine, the proposed confederation was located in the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone.
The two constituent republics of the confederation have no diplomatic recognition, and Ukraine has classified them as terrorist organizations. The creation of Novorossiya was declared on 22 May 2014, and one month later spokesmen of both republics declared their merger into a confederal "Union of People's Republics". Within a year the project was abandoned: on 1 January 2015 founding leadership announced the project has been put on hold, and on 20 May the constituent members announced the freezing of the political project.
Novorossiya (from , ; literally New Russia) is a historical term of the Russian Empire denoting a region north of the Black Sea (presently part of Ukraine). It was formed as a new imperial province of Russia (Novorosiiskaia guberniia) in 1764 from military frontier regions along with parts of the southern Hetmanate in preparation for war with the Ottomans. It was further expanded by the annexation of the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775. It at various times it encompassed the Moldavian region of Bessarabia, the modern Ukraine′s regions of the Black Sea littoral (Prychornomoria), Zaporizhia, Tavria, the Azov Sea littoral (Pryazovia), the Tatar region of Crimea, the Nogai steppe at the Kuban River, and the Circassian lands.
The region was part of the Russian Empire until its collapse following the Russian February Revolution in early March 1917, after which it became part of the short-lived Russian Republic. In 1918, it was largely included in the Ukrainian State and in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic at the same time. In 1918–1920, it was, to varying extents, under the control of the anti- Bolshevik White movement governments of South Russia whose defeat signified the Soviet control over the territory, which became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, within the Soviet Union from 1922.
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, there have been attempts to revive Novorossiya, the most significant of which has been the pro-Russian separatist movement to create a Novorossiyan confederation with the subsequent War in Donbass.