Don Republic

The Don Republic (Russian: Донская Республика) and later the Vsevelikoe Voisko Donskoe (Russian: Всевеликое Войско Донское, The Allmighty Army of Don) was an anti-Bolshevik state formed during the Russian Civil War after the collapse of the Russian Empire, and the name of two organizations formed in the 1990s.

The independence was proclaimed by the assembly of Don Cossacks called the Krug on May 18, 1918. This occurred after the liquidation of the Don Soviet Republic from the territory of the Don Voisko Oblast on May 10.

The Don Republic claimed the territory of the Don region and the city of Novocherkassk as its capital. Administratively, the Don Republic was divided into 10 okrugs, which are now located in modern-day Rostov and Volgograd Oblasts of Russia and Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts of neighboring Ukraine.

During the dissolution of the USSR, in October 1991, the Don Cossack Republic was proclaimed as a subject of the Russian Federation with the capital in Novocherkassk. In November 1991, it was declared a subject of the newly proclaimed Union of Cossack Republics in Southern Russia. However, none of these polities was recognized, and the territory claimed by them was integrated into the Russian Federation.

It is currently headed by Viktor Vodolatskiy and counts among its membership 135,000 Cossacks, not counting family members.

There is also a non-governmental organization with the same name which is registered, by some sources, in Ukraine, and headed by Nikolai Kozytsyn.