The future of Ukraine\u2019s industrial heartland in the east of the country is uncertain, after Vladimir Putin reportedly demanded it be handed to Russia during his meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday. <\/p>\n
The Russian leader demanded that Ukrainian<\/a> forces withdraw from Donetsk <\/a>as part of any ceasefire deal, and said he would be prepared to stop fighting <\/a>on the rest of the frontline if Kyiv gave in to the demand and addressed the \u201croot causes of the conflict\u201d. <\/p>\n The Ukrainian president has said that Putin wants to take the remaining 30 per cent of the eastern region<\/a>, which has been the location of some of the fiercest battles in the three-and-a-half-year war. <\/p>\n But losing Donetsk would give Russia control of almost all of the Donbas, the collective name for Ukraine\u2019s eastern industrial heartland, which has been long coveted by Putin.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, Zelensky vowed that Ukraine would \u201cnever leave\u201d the Donbas and warned that Putin could use it as a springboard for a future invasion. <\/p>\n However, sources close to the meeting told The Independent that the dramatic move appears to have been endorsed by Mr Trump as a means to bring an end to the war. <\/p>\n As Kyiv fights to keep the Donbas from Trump\u2019s so-called \u201cland swap\u201d deal, here\u2019s all you need to know about the region.<\/p>\n Where is the Donbas?<\/p>\n Situated along Ukraine\u2019s eastern border, the Donbas takes its portmanteau name from \u201cDonets Basin\u201d, a further abbreviation of \u201cDonets Coal Basin\u201d, in reference to the coal basin along the Donets Ridge and River. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Donbas stretches across the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, two large regions of Ukraine that have been on the front line of the war that followed Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n How long has it been occupied?<\/p>\n The Donbas has been partially occupied by Russia since 2014, around the same time that Putin annexed the Crimean peninsula. Russian-backed separatists broke away from the Ukrainian government to proclaim the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk independent \u201cpeople\u2019s republics\u201d and, as a result, Moscow captured more than a third of Ukraine\u2019s eastern territory.<\/p>\n Russia classes inhabitants of the Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Luhansk People\u2019s Republic, the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic<\/a>, and the regions of Zaporizhzhia<\/a> and Kherson<\/a> as subjects of the Russian Federation. Ukraine insists these territories are part of Ukraine.<\/p>\n It is believed that around 88 per cent of the Donbas is under Russian control. This includes almost all of the Luhansk region and 75 per cent of the Donetsk region, according to Reuters. Approximately 6,600 sq km is still controlled by Ukraine, but Russia has been focusing most of its energy along the front in Donetsk, pushing towards the last remaining major cities such as Pokrovsk. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Donbas is known for its coal-mining industry (Reuters)<\/p>\n A key strategic region in the war<\/p>\n The hyper-industrialised Donbas economy is dominated by coal mining and metallurgy. The region has one of the largest coal reserves in Ukraine. When conflict broke out in 2014, Ukraine\u2019s coal-mining enterprises saw a 22.4 per cent decline in the production of raw coal compared with 2013, according to the Kyiv Post, showing the country\u2019s reliance on Donbas as an energy powerhouse.<\/p>\n But as well as its economic significance, Donbas has been described as a \u201cfortress belt\u201d by the Institute for the Study of War in terms of its strategic value. Donetsk forms the main fortified defensive line across the front line, stretching through Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka.<\/p>\n \u201cUkraine is holding a key defensive line across Donetsk,\u201d says Elina Beketova, a fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, describing a \u201cfortified zone buildup over years because the war began 11 years ago\u201d. She adds that Russia hasn\u2019t been able to break through since 2014, and has lost many people there. The entire region is heavily mined, and Ukrainian troops have been preparing it for years.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Ukrainian soldiers train in the east of the country (Anadolu Agency via Getty)<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just trenches, it\u2019s a deep, layered defence with bunkers, anti-tank ditches, minefields, and industrial areas built into the terrain. The area includes dominant heights, rivers, and urban zones that make it extremely hard to capture,\u201d explains Beketova.<\/p>\n She says that losing this fortified line would have \u201ccatastrophic consequences\u201d for Ukraine, as it holds back Russia\u2019s advancement into central and western parts of the country. \u201cThe front would shift approximately 80km west, and Russia would gain open ground \u2013 flat steppe with no natural barriers \u2013 giving it a direct path towards Kharkiv, Poltava, and Dnipro.\u201d<\/p>\n What Zelensky has said about the Donbas<\/p>\n Zelensky has repeatedly rejected calls from Russia to give up the Donbas.<\/p>\n In response to Putin\u2019s request that Ukraine withdraw from eastern Donetsk, Zelensky vowed that his people would \u201cnever leave\u201d the Donbas, and warned that Putin\u2019s troops could use it as a springboard for a future invasion.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will not leave Donbas. We cannot do this. Everyone forgets the first part \u2013 our territories are illegally occupied. Donbas for the Russians is a springboard for a future new offensive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-353315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115047884982079267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Donbas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755491315_296_SEI218012753.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Ukrainian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-1682068455.jpg\")
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