Why is Putin obsessed with Donbas? Capturing this region is the only condition for ending the war

According to the Financial Times, Putin is once again trying to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to pressure Ukraine into surrendering the eastern Donbas region &mdash; a territory Moscow has been fighting for over a decade.The paper reported that during their most recent meeting, Trump urged President Volodymyr Zelensky to give Putin the entire Donbas &mdash; an area that includes two Ukrainian regions, Donetsk and Luhansk &mdash; even parts still under Ukrainian control.U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump&rsquo;s chief intermediary with the Kremlin, allegedly told the Ukrainian delegation that Donbas should be handed over because it is &ldquo;mostly Russian-speaking&rdquo; &mdash; echoing one of the Kremlin&rsquo;s oldest talking points.So what exactly is Donbas &mdash; and why is Russia so obsessed with it?Where is Donbas?Donbas is a historical region in eastern Ukraine. The term &ldquo;Donbas&rdquo; is an abbreviation of &ldquo;Donets Coal Basin,&rdquo; named after the Seversky Donets River that flows through the area.The term has been in use since the 19th century and originally referred not only to today&rsquo;s Donetsk and Luhansk regions but also to parts of Ukraine&rsquo;s Dnipropetrovsk region and even areas of southern Russia through which the Seversky Donets River flows.Shutterstock/klengerThe region is best known as Ukraine&rsquo;s industrial and mining heartland &mdash; a symbol of the country&rsquo;s heavy industry. Yet parts of Donbas are also agricultural, with vast farmlands surrounding its industrial hubs.Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the two regions that form the core of Donbas, have long been economic powerhouses built on coal, steel, and machinery.The Russian war began in DonbasThe Russian war against Ukraine did not start in 2022, but in 2014 &mdash; with the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbas. That is why Ukrainians often refer to 2022 as the beginning of the full-scale phase of a war that had already been raging for years.From the outset, Moscow tried to conceal its aggression.Very good Ukrainian news channel that always do good summaries&hellip;Disaster In Donbas! Russian Generals PREPARE FOR THE WORST! | RFU News🔴 Our Interactive News Map: https://t.co/p75YVtEQEe pic.twitter.com/oSnnXnjRLu&mdash; Maria Schmid - 🇵🇹 (@MariaSc90701399) October 19, 2025 While boasting about the annexation of Crimea, Russia denied involvement in the war in Donbas, promoting the narrative that local &ldquo;separatists&rdquo; were responsible for the fighting, reports the Kyiv Independent.Ukraine&rsquo;s Economic PowerhouseFor much of modern Ukrainian history, Donbas was its economic engine. Before the Russian invasion, Donetsk and Luhansk regions were home to hundreds of metallurgical, coal, and chemical plants exporting goods worldwide.According to data from the Centre for Economics and Business Research in London, the region accounted for roughly 15.7% of Ukraine&rsquo;s GDP and 14.7% of its population before 2014.The Russian war changed everything. Many of these enterprises ceased operations as Russian attacks damaged industrial assets, millions of locals fled the hostilities, and blockades between Ukraine and the territories occupied by Russia cut off trade.The invasion also caused a decline in Ukraine&rsquo;s international exports and foreign investment. These three maps tell everything about why Russia wants Ukraine so bad, and the Donbas most of all. pic.twitter.com/oLuJHYfLHD&mdash; Mary Eilene Lynn (@MaryELynn) October 19, 2025 Between 2014 and 2021, the same research center estimated that Ukraine lost $102 billion due to the war in Donbas&mdash;roughly 8% of its prewar GDP each year.Still, many enterprises continued to operate despite the front line moving closer after 2022.However, earlier this year, a key coal mine in Donbas was forced to shut down due to Russian advances in the area. It was the last operational coking coal mine in Ukraine, delivering a major blow to the country&rsquo;s economy.Donbas is More Than People&mdash;It&rsquo;s TerritoryHuman losses in the war have been immense. Between 2014 and February 2021, according to UN data, at least 3,400 civilians and 4,400 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Donbas. Nearly 20,000 were wounded. At least two million people were forced to flee their homes because of the fighting. About the same number continued living under Russian occupation&mdash;amid poverty, Kremlin indoctrination, and crossfire along the front lines&mdash;while Ukraine fought ongoing Russian attacks.Since 2022, Russia has destroyed many towns and villages in the region. In Mariupol alone, which had a pre-invasion population of about 500,000, estimates suggest that Russia has killed up to 75,000 civilians, reports a Ukrainian portal.Taisiya Vorontsova / Zuma Press / ProfimediaThe true cost of Russia&rsquo;s war, beyond the numbers, is yet to be fully understood.&ldquo;When you talk about Donetsk Oblast as a hot piece of pie to be divided among the community,&rdquo; said Oleksiy Ladika, a local journalist from Kramatorsk who now serves in Ukraine&rsquo;s 92nd Assault Brigade, in August to Kyiv Independent, &ldquo;I want people to remember that everyone here has their own family, loved ones, hope, and desire for a peaceful life and a future for their children&mdash;just like anyone anywhere in the world.&rdquo;A Russian-Speaking RegionOne of Moscow&rsquo;s oldest phrases claims that Donbas &ldquo;naturally&rdquo; belongs to Russia because many of its residents speak Russian.However, as Kyiv Independent notes, before 2014, the vast majority of residents in Donetsk and Luhansk identified as Ukrainian citizens.Russia has long used linguistic ties to justify its aggression&mdash;but speaking Russian does not mean supporting Moscow.A poll conducted by the Kyiv think tank &ldquo;Razumkov Center&rdquo; between April 24 and May 4, 2025, showed that 82% of Russian-speaking Ukrainians hold negative views of Russia.Russian claims of &ldquo;saving&rdquo; Russian-speaking Ukrainians are undermined by the widespread destruction. Years of neglect and wartime damage have also left areas of Luhansk and Donetsk under Russian occupation with barely functional infrastructure, leading to a water crisis in these regions during the summer of 2025.EPA/IVAN BOBERSKYYThe real reason for Putin&rsquo;s focus on seizing Donbas is likely military in nature.By mid-August 2025, Russia had occupied 19% of Ukraine&rsquo;s territory, according to Reuters.Luhansk Oblast is almost entirely under Russian control, while Ukrainian forces still firmly hold parts of Donetsk Oblast&mdash;approximately 6,600 square kilometers (2,550 square miles), including key cities such as Pokrovsk, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk.For Putin, full control over Ukraine&rsquo;s Donetsk Oblast remains a central demand.As The Economist noted, the real reason lies in Ukraine&rsquo;s so-called &ldquo;belt of fortresses&rdquo;&mdash;a 50-kilometer stretch of heavily fortified cities from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk to Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka.This network of fortifications, trenches, minefields, and anti-tank barriers has been continuously reinforced since 2014. After Bakhmut was captured in 2023, Ukraine doubled its efforts to strengthen the line.Former Defense Minister Andriy Zahorodniuk told The Economist that enormous resources have been invested in the defensive network, turning Sloviansk and Kramatorsk into &ldquo;fortress cities&rdquo;&mdash;logistical hubs and industrial strongholds that have so far resisted Russian advances.Current Situation in DonbasAccording to Financial Times, during the meeting with Zelensky, Trump repeatedly echoed Putin&rsquo;s arguments&mdash;sometimes contradicting his own recent statements about Russia&rsquo;s weakness.Despite later claims that he did not ask Zelensky to cede Donbas, the meeting highlighted the unpredictability of Trump&rsquo;s position and his openness to consider Putin&rsquo;s maximalist demands.For Kyiv, the idea of &ldquo;trading&rdquo; parts of Donbas still under Ukrainian control remains unthinkable.It would mean surrendering precisely the territory that Moscow has failed to capture since the start of the invasion in 2014.

Why is Putin obsessed with Donbas? Capturing this region is the only condition for ending the war

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