At the summit held last week in Alaska, Vladimir Putin established as a fundamental condition to end the war the total control of Donbás, the industrial heart of Ukraine located east of the country.
According to sources with information from the conversations, the Russian leader demanded that the Ukrainian forces be completely withdrawn from Donetsk and Lugansk, the two regions that make up Donbás, in return to freeze the rest of the front.
Volodimir Zelenski has systematically rejected any territory under the control of kyiv, which makes the Donbás one of the most conflicting points of peace conversations. The idea is also very unpopular in the country: around 75% of Ukrainians oppose Russia formally yield, according to a survey by the International Institute of Sociology of kyiv.
Putin's impulse for dominating the region dates back to 2014, when Moscow armed and financed separatist groups and sent undercover troops on the other side of the border. That campaign intensified until it became the large -scale invasion of 2022, when the Russian forces seized much of the region.
Russia currently controls about 46,570 square kilometers, that is, approximately 88% of Donbás, including all Lugansk and about three quarters of Donetsk.
Ukraine continues to control several key cities and fortified positions in the Donetsk region, defended at the expense of tens of thousands of lives. More than 250,000 civilians remain in the parts of the region that are still under Ukrainian control.
Where is it and why Putin wants it?
Donbás, abbreviation of Donets basin, is an industrial center in eastern Ukraine rich in coal and with an important heavy industry. For a long time it has been one of the most Russian regions of Ukraine, molded by the waves of Russian immigration during the Soviet industrial impulse that turned its coal mines and its approaches into the engine of the USSR.
His political loyalties used to lean east: Viktor Yanukóvich, the president backed by the Kremlin that was overthrown in 2014he was born in Donetsk and built his power base there.
The Donbás was involved in the conflict in 2014 after Yanukóvich was overthrown by mass protests and fled the country. As a result, Moscow seized Crimea and the riots extended in eastern Ukraine. Armed groups backed by Russian weapons and combatants declared the creation of the self -proclaimed “popular republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The separatist war fed the resentment towards Moscow in the areas of the Donbas controlled by Ukraine. In the 2019 Ukraine presidential elections, the voters of that area supported Zelenski for a wide margin. Zelenski, who speaks Russian, campaigned promising to end the conflict and safeguard the sovereignty of Ukraine.
From the beginning of the invasion in February 2022, Putin presented the protection of Donbás residents as the main justification for launching what he called his “special military operation.” In a televised speech, he said that the self -proclaimed popular republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had asked Moscow for help and repeated unfounded statements that Russian -speaking residents were suffering a “genocide” at the hands of kyiv.
Actually, Donbás served as a pretext: in a matter of hours, the Russian forces advanced far beyond the region, moving towards kyiv in an attempt to overthrow the Zelenski government and take control of the entire country.
How does Donbás see the average Russian?
For years, Russian state media tried to cultivate sympathy for Donbás, presenting Ukraine as a country that discriminated against its Russian population, but never really managed to move the general public.
Unlike Crimea, which had a deep historical and emotional resonance for many Russians, Donbás remained a farther and industrial region, with little symbolic weight.
On the eve of the large -scale invasion, independent surveys showed that only about a quarter of the Russians supported the idea of incorporating Donetsk and Lugansk into Russia.
However, since the invasion, the narrative has changed: the surveys indicate that most Russians accept and support the objective declared by Putin to “protect” the population of Donbás, and most support the annexation of the territories.
Where do Putin ambitions end?
As reported, Putin told Donald Trump in Alaska that, in exchange for Donetsk and Lugansk, he would stop new advances and freeze the front in the Ukrainian southern region of Jersón and Zaporiyia, where Russian forces occupy meaningful areas.
In public, Putin has repeatedly said that Russia seeks total control of the four regions that claimed to have annexed in autumn of 2022, including Jersón and Zaporizhia. He has also talked about establishing the so -called “cushioning zones” within the Ukrainian regions of Járkov, Sumy and Chernígov.
“Putin has acted opportunistically; when he launched the invasion he did not have in mind fixed territorial limits,” said an old high position of the Kremlin. “His appetite grows once he has tasted success.”
Military analysts doubt that Russia has economic or military capacity to advance far beyond Donbás and claim that the conflict could be extended for years as a war of wear in Ukraine.
Ukraine has warned that giving Donbás, with its chain of fortified cities such as Sloviansk and Kramorsk, would provide Russia with a launch platform to advance more deeply towards the center of Ukraine.
