I would still trust an actual referendum held in 2014 than some random net article. Unfortunately, now it's too late for that, we have a bloody war and need to find a way out. And that was my whole point, referendums are good, and the British government is doing the right thing to allow them.

I write Lugansk since it was written like that when I learned it. Luhansk is a relatively recent transcription change. It's still written as Lugansk in most of the German and Polish media. French, Croatian, and Spanish name could also be the same.

Even in original Ukrainian, it is written as Луганськ, "г" being a Cyrillic "g" and not "h". As someone who can read Cyrillic, but neither Russian nor Ukrainian, I just tend to transcribe Cyrillic letters as is, instead to guess the right pronunciation.