These are some of the notable events relating to politics in 2014.
2014 (MMXIV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2014th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 14th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 5th year of the 2010s decade.
Eastern Ukraine or east Ukraine is primarily the territory of Ukraine east of the Dnipro river, particularly Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (provinces). Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts are often also regarded as "eastern Ukraine".
Oleksandr Valentynovych Turchynov is a Ukrainian politician, screenwriter, Baptist minister and economist. He is the former Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.
The Barack Obama administration's involvement in the Middle East was greatly varied between the region's various countries. Some nations, such as Libya and Syria, were the subject of offensive action at the hands of the Obama administration, while nations such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia received arms deliveries. Notable achievements of the administration include inhibiting the Iranian nuclear program, while his handling of certain situations, such as the Syrian civil war, were highly criticized.
Snap presidential elections were held in Ukraine on 25 May 2014 and resulted in Petro Poroshenko being elected President of Ukraine. Originally scheduled to take place on 29 March 2015, the date was brought forward following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. Poroshenko won the elections with 55% of the vote, enough to win in a single round. His closest competitor, Yulia Tymoshenko, received 13% of the vote. The Central Election Commission reported voter turnout over 60%, excluding the regions not under government control. Since Poroshenko obtained an absolute majority in the first round, a run-off second ballot was unnecessary.
The Axis of Resistance is an informal Iranian-led political and military coalition in the Middle East.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 2014.
The following lists events that happened in the year 2014 in Ukraine.
From the end of February 2014, in the aftermath of the Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the ousting of Russian-leaning Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, demonstrations by Russian-backed, pro-Russian, and anti-government groups took place in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Odesa. The unrest, which was supported by the Russian military and intelligence services, belongs to the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The following lists events that happened in 2014 in Russia.
Referendums on the status of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, parts of Ukraine that together make up the Donbas region, were claimed to have taken place on 11 May 2014 in many towns under the control of the Russian-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. These referendums intended to legitimise the establishment of the so-called "republics", in the context of the Russian invasion of Crimea and rising pro-Russian unrest in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. In addition, a counter-referendum on accession to Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was held in some Ukrainian-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The war in Donbas, also known as the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The war began in April 2014, when a commando unit headed by Russian citizen Igor Girkin seized Sloviansk in Donetsk oblast. The Ukrainian military launched an operation against them. The war continued until subsumed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Luhansk or Lugansk People's Republic is a republic of Russia in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast, with its capital in Luhansk. The LPR was proclaimed by Russian-backed paramilitaries in 2014, and it initially operated as a breakaway state until it was annexed by Russia in 2022. The entire territory of LPR is viewed as sovereign territory of Ukraine by nearly all UN member states.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian civil war from August to December 2014. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
Many states began to intervene against the Islamic State, in both the Syrian civil war and the War in Iraq (2013–2017), in response to its rapid territorial gains from its 2014 Northern Iraq offensives, universally condemned executions, human rights abuses and the fear of further spillovers of the Syrian Civil War. These efforts are called the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), or the International military intervention against Islamic State (ISIS). In later years, there were also minor interventions by some states against IS-affiliated groups in Nigeria and Libya. All these efforts significantly degraded the Islamic State's capabilities by around 2019–2020. While moderate fighting continues in Syria, as of 2024, ISIS has been contained to a manageably small area and force capability.
On 22 September 2014, the United States officially intervened in the Syrian civil war with the stated aim of fighting the terrorist organization ISIS in support of the international war against it, code named Operation Inherent Resolve. The US currently continues to support the Syrian rebels and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces opposed to both the Islamic State and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
The Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade, also known as Islamic State in Gaza, was an Islamist militant group affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant that was reportedly active in the Gaza Strip around 2015. Its goals have consistently matched those of the Islamic State, in that it seeks to establish the al-Sham caliphate. As such, it opposes all forms of Palestinian nationalism while also supporting the elimination of all Jews and other ethno-religious 'infidels' from the region.
The Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are areas of Ukraine that are currently controlled by Russia in the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War. In Ukrainian law, they are defined as the "temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine".
From April 2014 until September 2022, the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) claimed to be independent states. Their sovereignty was recognized by South Ossetian authorities in 2014, Russia and Abkhazian authorities in February 2022, Syria in June 2022 and North Korea in July 2022.