{"id":726483,"date":"2026-01-28T14:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/726483\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T14:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:14:41","slug":"conceding-donetsk-wont-end-the-war-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/726483\/","title":{"rendered":"Conceding Donetsk won\u2019t end the war in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months, the Trump administration has advanced a simple formula for ending the war in Ukraine: Kyiv must concede territory in exchange for American security guarantees. As JD Vance put it in August 2025<\/a>, \u201cthe Ukrainians want security guarantees, and the Russians want\u2026 territory.\u201d This trade-off remains at the centre of US efforts to mediate a peace deal.<\/p>\n

In recent rounds of talks with the Ukrainian delegation, Washington has reportedly<\/a> continued to make future US security commitments contingent on Kyiv\u2019s withdrawal from Donetsk, believing that this could secure a peace deal. But this framework will ultimately fail, as it fundamentally misunderstands the role that territory plays in the current conflict. Instead, the Trump administration should focus on the war\u2019s root cause, if any ceasefire is to be realistically achieved.<\/p>\n

Though some in the administration, such as Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, have suggested it is the one issue<\/a> holding up a peace deal, Russia has never seen this war as being primarily about territory. A withdrawal from Donetsk is instead a symbolic victory for Moscow that would signal Ukrainian capitulation and surrender. This would serve as a tacit admission that Russia has \u201cwon\u201d the war, handing a political victory to President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

A further problem, though, is that Ukraine\u2019s territorial concession would not mark the end of the conflict. Senior Russian officials have repeatedly made<\/a> clear that Ukraine\u2019s withdrawal<\/a> from Donetsk is a precondition for starting negotiations and would not guarantee<\/a> the end of the war. After Kyiv cedes the rest of Donetsk, an emboldened Moscow hopes negotiations will move on to other topics including the size of Ukraine\u2019s military, its non-aligned status with Nato, ties to Europe, and the protection of Russian language. In this sense, the concession of Donetsk would be the precondition to later outlining the true causes of the war.<\/p>\n

Importantly, the security guarantees offered<\/a> by the US or Europe would almost certainly be litigated during this round of discussions, as Russia would have a stronger battlefield advantage through control over Donetsk. Understanding this, Ukraine\u2019s leaders can never accept a \u201cterritory for security guarantees\u201d bargain, especially one which requires them to give up the land first and receive security promises later.<\/p>\n

Certainly, Ukraine\u2019s leaders hope to avoid a further shrinking of the country\u2019s borders. But they might ultimately accept such a loss if they could be assured that Russia would not attack again in the future. Ukrainian integration into Europe\u2019s sphere of influence, once and for all, would also be a safe guarantee. Questions about the credibility of US and European promises to Ukraine and distrust of Russia, however, make such assurances impossible. Kyiv is right to fear that it could give up valuable territory, the so-called \u201cfortress belt<\/a>\u201d, and be left with nothing in return.<\/p>\n

US negotiators will need a new strategy to bring the current war to a close, one which stops putting territory at the centre of peace talks and instead focuses on security. These would include topics such as how Ukraine\u2019s non-aligned status will be formalised, what its post-war military might look like, and how the United States and Europe can credibly commit to end Nato\u2019s eastward expansion.<\/p>\n

Moscow may resist talks on these topics with the territorial issue still unresolved, but here Washington has two advantages<\/a>. Firstly, the US has things Russia wants \u2014 normalised ties and sanctions relief \u2014 which Ukraine cannot give. Secondly, Putin hopes to avoid provoking Donald Trump into inflicting new penalties on Russia.<\/p>\n

To be sure, such a reorientation will reveal that peace is not close. This is unfortunate, but it\u2019s also the reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For months, the Trump administration has advanced a simple formula for ending the war in Ukraine: Kyiv must…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[8874,2000,299,58562,7661,7070,657,2970],"class_list":{"0":"post-726483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-donetsk","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-peace-deal","12":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","13":"tag-steve-witkoff","14":"tag-ukraine","15":"tag-uncategorized"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115973145489677131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726483","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=726483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}