The future of Ukraine’s industrial heartland in the east will almost certainly play a key role in talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday.
The Russian leader has demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw from Donetsk as part of any ceasefire deal, according to Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian president has said that Mr Putin wants the remaining 30 per cent of the eastern region, which has seen some of the fiercest battles in the three-and-a-half-year long war.
But losing Donetsk would give Russia control of almost all of the Donbas, the collective name for Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland which has been long coveted by Mr Putin.
Earlier this week, Mr Zelensky vowed Ukraine would “never leave” the Donbas and warned that Mr Putin could use it as a springboard for a future invasion.
As Kyiv fights to keep Donbas from Mr Trump’s so-called “land swap” deal, here’s all you need to know about the region.
Along Ukraine’s eastern border, Donbas is a portmanteau name from “Donets Basin”, a further abbreviation of “Donets Coal Basin”, in reference to the coal basin along the Donets Ridge and river.
Donbas stretches across the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, two large regions of Ukraine that have formed a significant part of the frontline in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Donbas has been partially occupied by Russia since 2014. At around the same time, Mr Putin annexed the Crimean peninsula.
Russian-backed separatists broke away from the Ukrainian government to proclaim themselves independent “people’s republics” and, as a result, Moscow captured over a third of Ukraine’s eastern territory.
Russia classes the Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Luhansk People’s Republic, the Donetsk People’s Republic, and the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as subjects of the Russian Federation. Ukraine insists these territories are part of Ukraine.
It is believed around 88 per cent of the Donbas region 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 square 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.
The hyper-industrialised Donbas economy is dominated by coal mining and metallurgy. The region has one of the largest coal reserves in Ukraine.
