Donbas as a Ukrainian region until April 2014 had no “genocide” to be seen until this guy came along
.Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, aka “Strelkov”, a Muscovite and Russian “patriot”, aka ultranationalist, snuck across the border with 50-odd Russian volunteers (from the RF) and took Slaviansk by force on 12 April 2014.
Strelkov bolstered his forces with a few thousand local riffraff, mostly petty criminals and bandits. By June 2014 their advances had been stalled
In that same month Girkin (not a Ukraine resident) became "Minister of Defence of the (self-proclaimed) DPR". The rest is what we call history.
there’s also Girkin’s verbündeter Alexander Yurevich Borodai, another Russian ultranationalist from Moscow and the first “Prime Minister of the DPR” (now a United Russia MP in the state Duma).