Rise and Fall of the Party of Regions Political Machine
Journal: Problems of Post-Communism
Year: 2015

There is very limited Western scholarship on the Donbas region, despite its being the center of Europe’s worst conflict since World War II. The Donbas region did not wish to join Soviet Ukraine in 1918, was not a source for Soviet Ukrainian leaders, and has high levels of Soviet nostalgia, low support for Ukrainian independence, and relatively high levels of support for separatism. The Donbas-based Party of Regions political machine won a plurality in three Ukrainian elections (2006, 2007, and 2