On 15 May 2014 the Russian on-line newspaper Vzglyad noted that the then Governor of the Donetsk People's Republic, Pavel Gubarev, had announced the start of voting for a flag of the proposed state of Novorossiya [REF].
Following the proposition of the white-yellow-black tricolour as the national flag, the saltire was then adopted as the battle flag of the republic,[REF] while a variant with the coat of arms is in use as de facto national flag since.