Just yesterday, Ukrainian excavators were still digging trench lines and placing dragon's teeth in different defensive layers in the Donetsk region, the best proof that Kiev has no intention of leaving this place without a fight, as demanded by Vladimir Putin to achieve any kind of peace.
Donbass (short for Donetskii Bassein, Donetsk Basin) is a territory that many Ukrainians have never been to and have no intention of going to. In reality, many have come to know it reluctantly as part of the war effort of their brigades, but here they are deployed in their country's largest military effort. It is not only a Russian-speaking area but was forcibly Russified by Stalin in the 1950s, after suffering a significant depopulation due to hosting several battles during World War II. Its subsoil hides the country's richest mineral resources, such as coal, gas, mercury, uranium, and iron, the basis of steel production, power generation, and the chemical industry.
If Ukraine has a clear Soviet heritage throughout its geography (despite the efforts of the new authorities to erase it), in the case of Donetsk and Luhansk, the two regions that make up Donbass, this link to the past is much more evident. The roads are in poor condition, and due to the war, it is much more underdeveloped than the rest of Ukraine. The most profitable business is that of military equipment stores to equip the soldiers.
It was in that region where Vladimir Putin cooked up this war in the spring of 2014, and it is in that region that this invasion will be decided: the Russian autocrat not only demands the portion of Donetsk that he has managed to occupy during these 11 years but also demands all its territory up to the border of the Dnipro and Kharkiv oblasts. In other words, all of Luhansk and Donetsk, despite his army being unable to conquer the latter despite all the military and human resources that Russia has burned to achieve it. For Ukraine, accepting the loss of Donbass would be legitimizing the Russian invasion and opening the door to new aggressions. Abandoning it would mean betraying the sacrifice of the soldiers and civilians who have died defending the region. Additionally, many Russian-speaking Ukrainians still live in that area who, despite what Russian propaganda claims, feel Ukrainian and do not wish to change their passport.
The experience of occupation in liberated areas such as Bucha, Kherson, or Kharkiv has already shown the fate of Ukrainians in the face of Russian forces: blacklists, torture, terror, and executions. Zelenski will not hand over these citizens.
Ukraine still retains 25% of the Donetsk region. It is a high and easily defensible area thanks to the course of the Donetsk River, a natural barrier that works in favor of the Ukrainian defense. The Russians have lost a large number of armored vehicles trying to cross it with pontoons. That bend in the river surrounds the cities of Konstantinivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, and the liberated Liman, an elevated and difficult-to-surround urban belt. Around those cities, the Ukrainians have built a defensive ring with bunkers and fortifications that the Russians have not been able to take yet in a frontal assault.
If Ukraine were to give up that entire area, the best defended on the entire front, they could maneuver their tanks to surround Kharkiv or even reach the city of Dnipro with much less resistance.
Could Putin quickly take this area? The Institute for the Study of War states that "Russia will not be able to quickly seize the rest of Donetsk by force, as they have not done so for over a decade. Russia could only do so if Ukraine yields to Putin's demand and withdraws."
Ukraine feels morally connected to that land for which they have fought fiercely from the beginning. Military units like Azov, Kraken, or Wolves of Vinci grew as militias in 2014 and today represent the elite of their army precisely for having fought against Russia and its proxies in that territory. Volodymyr Zelenski not only does not want to give it to Putin, he probably cannot. A large part of the army and society would overthrow his government in the streets. Therefore, Ukraine may concede other issues in negotiations, but never that. Accepting the loss of Donbass would fracture Ukrainian internal politics: no leader would politically survive such a concession.
If Russia has struggled with this war, it was not only due to Ukrainian resistance around Kiev or Kharkiv in the first weeks of the invasion but also because of the role of its strongholds in Donetsk. In fact, in 2022, Z troops occupied more territory than they do now in 2025. From 2023 to today, Russia's supposed victory is having advanced 0.9% of all of Ukraine (according to the specialized website Deepstate) at the cost of casualties that could already reach a million between dead and wounded.
Mark Galeotti, a renowned British analyst specializing in Russian security, believes that "ceding Donbass is a manifestation of Moscow's autocratic imperialism and its strategy of co-opting the Ukrainian state, beyond international law or real diplomacy."