Since the fanfare surrounding Donald Trump’s face to face peace talks with the Russian President, perhaps unsurprisingly, the war continues in Ukraine.
That’s partly because as part of any deal, Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to hand over the entire eastern region of Donbas. It’s a demand that Ukraine rejects.
So, what is so important to Putin about that region?
Today, John Haltiwanger from Foreign Policy magazine, explains why Donbas is at the heart of Putin’s war.
Featured:
John Haltiwanger, staff writer at Foreign Policy magazine
Subscribe to ABC News Daily on the ABC listen app.
Sam Hawley: Since the fanfare surrounding Donald Trump's face-to-face peace talks with the Russian president, perhaps unsurprisingly, the war continues in Ukraine. That's partly because of part of any deal Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to hand over the entire eastern area of Donbas, which it won't do. So what is so important to Putin about that region? Today, John Haltiwanger from Foreign Policy magazine explains why Donbas is at the heart of Putin's war. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. John, when Donald Trump sat down in the Oval Office with the Ukrainian and European leaders a few weeks back, there was this big map of Ukraine placed on an easel in the room and you can see it in the photographs taken by the press on the day. Just tell me what it shows.
John Haltiwanger: Well, it shows the current status of the war in Ukraine and the most important territories in the conflict. The most important territory at the moment, which has also been the case throughout the war, is the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. This territory has been at the centre of the war from the very start.
Sam Hawley: Donald Trump, he spoke about this map during an interview with Fox News after the meeting, emphasising that the territory in red had been lost to Ukraine.
Donald Trump, U.S President: I assume you've all seen the map. You know, a big chunk of territory is taken and that territory has been taken. Now, they're talking about Donbas, but Donbas right now, as you know, is 79% owned and controlled by Russia.
Sam Hawley: So, what was the messaging, do you think, from Donald Trump here?
John Haltiwanger: I think Trump was trying to get across that, look, he understands that Ukraine wants this territory back. This is considered sovereign Ukrainian territory, but that the realities of this conflict will make it very difficult. And I think what Trump is trying to signal is, I understand that you want this territory back, but the reality is that in whatever agreement that I hope to get out of this, this peace agreement that Trump is pushing for, it's likely that, at the very least, you're going to have to give de facto recognition that Russia occupies these lands and it's unlikely that you're going to reconquer them, based on how things stand. I think this is what Trump was trying to suggest to Kiev.
Sam Hawley: All right, so the message from Donald Trump was that a large chunk of land in the Donbas region had been taken by Russia and the Ukrainian president really needed to consider a territorial deal. Now, Zelensky, he disputes the map, but what do we know? How much of Donbas does Russia control at this point?
John Haltiwanger: So Russia controls about 88% of the Donbas. It controls all but a sliver of one of the two territories that makes up the Donbas, Luhansk, and it controls about 70% of Donetsk.
Sam Hawley: Okay, so quite a lot, actually. Now, just before we move on, of course, Donald Trump, after this meeting, had said that there was this potential for a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. That hasn't happened, of course, and it doesn't appear like it will, does it?
John Haltiwanger: No, it does not. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's top diplomat, gave an interview in what he signalled that a meeting is really not on the table. The fact that Putin has demanded that Ukraine give up the Donbas also kind of signals that he's not really genuinely serious about peace. He's seeing what he can get out of an agreement, what he can try to force Ukraine to agree to based on where the war stands right now. I spoke with William Taylor. He's a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. He basically characterized Putin's demands as outlandish because the territory that Ukraine does still hold in Donetsk, one of the two territories that constitutes the Donbas, is really strategically vital. This is land that Ukraine has spent years fortifying. There are several cities that are often referred to as fortress cities, in this part of Donetsk. And it's not just going to want to give away that territory because, as Zelensky has warned, this would pave the way for a future invasion from Russia. It would make that invasion a lot easier. They would be giving up the strategic high ground and making Putin's broader goal of subjugating all of Ukraine a lot easier. So this is why this is something Zelensky has repeatedly said he will never agree to. He's also emphasized that under the Ukrainian constitution, he's not allowed to just give away Ukraine's territory.
Sam Hawley: Even though Donald Trump thinks he can. John, let's look more deeply now at this region, at the Donbas region, and why it really is at the crux of Putin's war. It's had a really long, fraught history, hasn't it, going way, way back, but also during World War II. A point apparently noted by Zelensky during this meeting with the US president and to the press later, because his grandfather had actually fought during the war.
John Haltiwanger: That's right. This is a region that is really at the heart of the histories of both Ukraine and Russia in many different ways. Ukraine is a former Soviet republic. Much of it was also part of the Russian Empire. And during both of those periods, the Donbas was a, it became a hub of industry and mining during the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, and was a really important place for coal mining, for the Soviet Union in terms of being a heart of industry. During a period of rebuilding after World War II, a lot of Russian engineers and workers migrated to the Donbas. So there is this historic connection there. And a lot of Ukrainians there, their first language is Russian. But I think it's really important to underscore, based on some of the distorted narratives pushed by Putin about the history of the region, speaking Russian doesn't necessarily mean that the Ukrainians who reside there are sympathetic to Moscow. I think it's really worth noting that in 1991, when Ukraine voted for independence from the Soviet Union, it overwhelmingly did so. And so did the Donbas. 83% of the Donbas voted for independence from the Soviet Union.
News report: In churches across Ukraine, the people were celebrating their independence. For Moscow and the West, though, the stakes are indeed high. An independent Ukraine will be a formidable industrial and military power.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, and that, John, that was really evident, wasn't it, in 2014? That was the year that Putin annexed Crimea. But at the same time, he was also, way back then, pushing into Donbas. And not everyone who lived there supported that, even if some people did.
John Haltiwanger: Sure, there is obviously evidence that there are some groups there that are sympathetic to Russia. But there was Ukrainian battalions that spoke Russian, that their commands were given out in Russian, but they were fighting against pro-Kremlin rebels. And it kind of explains, again, why it's been at the heart of this conflict. You might recall that in 2022, in the lead-up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Putin made these outlandish claims of genocide against Russian speakers in the Donbas. There was no evidence of this. But he justified the invasion in part on, you know, essentially coming to the rescue of these people who were supposedly being persecuted.
Vladimir Putin, Russian President: Russophobia is the first step on the road to genocide. What is happening now in Donbas, this, of course, is very reminiscent of genocide.
John Haltiwanger: So this helps explain why the Donbas has been at the centre of this war for so long for both sides.
Sam Hawley: Mm, right. So, John, there's been a creep into Donbas by Russia over many years, starting in 2014, and then, of course, over the course of this war, this current war, which has lasted for more than three years at this point. But still, Ukraine holds a percentage of the land there, and we can see Ukrainians are still willing to die to keep that land.
John Haltiwanger: That's absolutely right. Ukrainians, in my experience, are very strong-willed people, and I think that's a sentiment that's prevalent throughout the country, especially in the Donbas, where there has been so much fighting, where so much of this conflict has been focused, where this conflict truly began in 2014. And, you know, polling shows that roughly three-fourths of Ukrainians do not want to see Zelensky give up territory as part of a peace agreement. So in spite of the fact that this war has been awful for Ukrainians and that it's, you know, not limited to the front lines whatsoever, we see Russian strikes on major Ukrainian cities far from the front lines all the time. They're determined to keep fighting to maintain their hold over their land and to get it back if they can. If we're being honest, if we're pulling back and we're really looking at circumstances on the ground, they will face serious difficulties in doing so in reconquering territory. But what's also the case is that military experts widely agree that Russia does not have the capacity to quickly conquer the rest of the Donbas. It would have to expend a lot of manpower, a lot of equipment, on top of all the losses it's already experienced. So this isn't an easy fight for Russia. And I think that's part of the reason Putin wanted to see if Ukraine would just give it up as part of a deal.
Sam Hawley: So, John, for Vladimir Putin, securing the Donbas region is absolutely everything. If he can't manage to do that, will he have any interest whatsoever in ending the war?
John Haltiwanger: This is a really complicated question. This is the million-dollar question. Every person I've spoken to who knows Putin well, people who've been in the room with Putin over the years, are convinced that he will never give up his goal of subjugating Ukraine, that one way or another he wants to get there. But there is a growing consensus, I would say, that perhaps the war could be frozen along the current lines in a way that offers a reprieve to Ukraine from this brutal onslaught. But this would only happen if the U.S. uses all of the leverage that it has. This is the consensus that I've gotten from former diplomats, from military experts, for people who've been on the ground in Ukraine constantly, that the only way to get a favorable agreement for Ukraine is to really make Putin feel the pain. And this is not just on the battlefield, but also through more targeted sanctions, more economic penalties. The only way they think Putin will actually back away from some of these more outlandish demands, such as Ukraine voluntarily giving up the rest of the Donbas, is if the U.S. can really help Ukraine get into a position where it can make Russia feel the pain on the battlefield, more or less.
Sam Hawley: All right, well, John, as you say, it will be very difficult, but it is possible that Russia could manage to secure the rest of Donbas. Now, if that was actually to happen, what do the people of Donbas do, the people that don't support Russia?
John Haltiwanger: It's a very tough question. Since the conflict began in the Donbas in 2014, 1.5 million people have already fled from the region. I should also note, just because this is relevant, that recent assessments suggest that it would take Russia likely several years at least to conquer the rest of the Donbas. I mean, there's really only been incremental gains, largely since late 2022. But yeah, this is a tough question for the people in the Donbas. I would imagine that, yes, some people would flee. Some people might also stay. This is their historic homeland. That counts for a lot. And I think it's a large part of the reason why they continue to fight so hard is because they don't want to imagine that future.
Sam Hawley: And tell me, if Putin does succeed in taking Donbas, is that really it for him, or should the world be very wary of that outcome?
John Haltiwanger: I do not think that Putin would stop at the Donbas. I think that Putin views all of Ukraine as part of Russia. He is getting up there in years. He is thinking about his legacy. He has long held a nostalgia for the Soviet Union. He has compared himself to Peter the Great in talking about the need to reconquer lands that are rightfully Russian. I think if he conquered all of the Donbas, he would undoubtedly use it as a staging ground for further incursions into Ukraine, further attempts to subjugate and conquer all of Ukraine. Ukraine is Putin's obsession. It has been for many years. And he believes that it should be under Russian control.
Sam Hawley: John Holtiwanger is a staff writer at Foreign Policy magazine. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley.Thanks for listening.