Donbas: Putin's goal and the core of the Ukraine conflict

Donbas: Putin's goal and the core of the Ukraine conflict

Negotiations on a potential peace treaty to end the war in Ukraine are gaining momentum. Much of the discussion focuses on the eastern region of the country, which has long been at the center of Russian ambitions.

The importance of the Donbas region

The Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as Donbas, were an industrial powerhouse in the Soviet era, famous for Coal mines and steel mills. The region also has fertile farmland, important rivers and a coastline on the Sea of ​​Azov. Historically, Donbas was the part of Ukraine with the highest Russian population, and my travels there ten years ago revealed that people in the region had little affection for the far-flung government in Kiev.

The destabilization of Ukraine

It was here that Putin began his efforts to destabilize Ukraine in 2014 after annexing Crimea. Pro-Russian militias, reasonably well-equipped with tanks, appeared in the region and quickly captured the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk from what was by then an ill-prepared and unmotivated Ukrainian military.

Conflicts and humanitarian impacts

For nearly eight years, the breakaway enclaves saw fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces, which Ukrainian officials said left more than 14,000 people dead. At least 1.5 million Ukrainians have left Donbas since 2014, and more than three million are estimated to be living under Russian occupation. Moscow distributed hundreds of thousands of Russian passports to people in separatist-controlled areas of Donbas.

The recognition of the separatists

But Putin wanted more. On the eve of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, he declared that the so-called civilized world “prefers to pretend that this horror, the genocide to which almost four million people are subjected, does not exist” and recognized Luhansk and Donetsk as independent states. Later this year Moscow unilaterally - and illegally - annexed both regions after sham referendums, along with the southern areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, even though these were only partially occupied.

The geopolitical implications

There is one for the Kremlin big difference between withdrawing from occupied territories (as the Russians did when they withdrew from parts of northern Ukraine in 2022) and abandoning regions formally incorporated into the motherland - especially for a leader like Putin, who is obsessed with a “greater Russia.”

The current situation in Donbas

Analysts believe that at the current rate, it would take the Russian army several years to fully occupy the annexed territories. At the same time, Ukraine has little chance of regaining much of what it has already lost: almost all of Luhansk and more than 70% of Donetsk. But Kiev still retains the “fortress ring” of industrial cities, railways and roads that represents a significant barrier to Putin’s forces: places like Slovyansk, Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka.

Political pressure in Ukraine

For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky it would be political suicide to give up the rest of Donetsk, an area many Ukrainian soldiers paid with their lives to defend. According to the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, around three quarters of Ukrainians oppose giving land to Russia. A withdrawal from the rest of Donetsk would also leave the wide open steppes of central Ukraine vulnerable to the next Russian offensive, as Zelensky has repeatedly emphasized, and would also be an unlawful surrender of Ukrainian territory.

The reaction of the international community

For Zelensky's European allies, this would also violate a central principle: that aggression cannot be rewarded with territory and that Ukrainian sovereignty must be protected. As in 2014, Donbas remains the crucible of Putin's ambitions in Ukraine and the biggest challenge for Europe as it tries to cling to a rules-based international order.