Krasnodon Raion

Krasnodon Raion or Sorokyne Raion was a raion in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine from 1923 to 2020 and the de-facto district of the Luhansk People's Republic, a federal subject of Russia. The administrative center of the raion was Krasnodon, also known as Sorokyne. The last estimate of the raion population before its abolition was

History

It was originally formed in 1923 as Sorokyne Raion. It was subordinate to of Donets Governorate of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. On August 12, 1927, it received the status of a national raion for ethnic Russians. At the time, it had a population of 13,216 people, of whom 80.5% were ethnic Russians. In 1930, it was assigned to Luhansk Okruha. From September 1930 to 1932, it was subordinated directly to the republic. In 1932, it was assigned to Donetsk Oblast. By this time, it was still considered a national raion. In June 1938, it was transferred to Voroshylovhrad Oblast. At some point, it was renamed Krasnodon Raion.
Since 2014, Krasnodon Raion has been controlled by forces of the Luhansk People's Republic. Initially, Krasnodon was incorporated as a city of oblast significance and did not belong to the raion, but in 2015, Ukraine officially merged it into the raion. In 2016, the Verkhovna Rada renamed Krasnodon Raion to Sorokyne Raion, implementing the law prohibiting names of Communist origin.
Sorokyne Raion was abolished by Ukraine on 18 July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Luhansk Oblast to eight. The LPR continued using the raion - under the name "Krasnodon Raion" - as an administrative unit after that point, and following the 2022 annexation referendums in Russian-occupied Ukraine, Russia has done the same.

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