{"id":355126,"date":"2025-08-18T21:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T21:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/355126\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T21:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T21:28:10","slug":"putins-land-swap-is-really-a-grab-for-ukraines-fortress-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/355126\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin\u2019s \u201cland swap\u201d is really a grab for Ukraine\u2019s fortress belt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-component=\"paragraph\" class=\"css-1l5amll e1y9q0ei0\">WHAT RUSSIA cannot get by fighting it is demanding to be given on a plate through the pressure that Donald Trump can put on Ukraine and on America\u2019s European allies. At the top of Vladimir Putin\u2019s shopping-list is the western part of Donetsk province, which is still firmly in Ukrainian hands. But it is not just the symbolism that is important to him. The real prize is to force Ukraine to abandon its strategically critical \u201cfortress belt\u201d, a 30-mile (50km) line that comprises four cities and several towns, which stands in the way not only of Russia\u2019s goal of gaining the whole of the Donbas, but also of its ability to threaten other regions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHAT RUSSIA cannot get by fighting it is demanding to be given on a plate through the pressure&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[299,332,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-355126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-russia","10":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115051895462268978","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355126","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=355126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}