One of East Ukraine’s two breakaway republics, the People’s Republic of Lugansk has recently appeared in Russian-language Google Maps
The People’s Republic of Lugansk, the breakaway, self-proclaimed pro-Russian separatist nation in the eastern part of the country, has recently appeared in Russian versions of Google Maps—this despite the fact that the vast majority of the world does not recognize its independence.
News of the change spread quickly across pro-Russian social media groups, with hundreds of users celebrating it as a sort of online declaration of independence. So far, the unsourced change in Google Maps is available only in Russian.
This isn’t the first time that Google Maps has controversially drawn borderlines in disputed areas in the region. In 2014, it began displaying the Crimean peninsula as a part of Russia on the Russian-language version of the app. Non-Russian versions, however, still showed the peninsula as part of the Ukraine.
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