Efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine could hinge on Kyiv handing over a 2,500-square mile piece of territory that is strategically key to the country’s defense and rich with natural resources that promise a postwar windfall.
For the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians living in this area, called the Donetsk, Russian occupation would present an agonizing choice: to leave their only home, or risk life under a regime accused of war crimes and a track record of repression.
“I have a lot of fear of people being permanently stuck behind that new Iron Curtain, I wouldn’t trust [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” said Colby Barrett, a former Marine and producer of the film “Faith Under Siege,” which focuses on Russia’s persecution of Christians in occupied territory.
“We know very clearly what life is like in Ukraine, and it’s very similar to America. It’s a great place — other than the constant drone attacks and missile attacks — it’s a wonderful, very free place to live. The opposite is true for the Russian occupied areas.”
Putin, as part of his demands for ending the war, has reportedly requested Ukraine hand over the 24 percent the Donetsk oblast (administrative region) that Russia doesn’t already control. Russia controls nearly all of the Luhansk oblast, also located in the eastern Donbas region.
President Trump’s Special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, said Russia has put a peace proposal on the table that involves Donetsk, but said “it may not be something that the Ukrainians can take,” in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night.
The offer presents a major dilemma for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who would face a political reckoning for handing over territory to Russia and risk the country’s future security by giving up an incredibly strategic military position.
“Putin’s bid to force Ukraine to cede areas of Donetsk Oblast that Russia does not occupy is not a compromise in support of a peace, but a ploy to get this crucial territory for essentially nothing,” Grace Mappes, Russia Analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an email to The Hill.
Ukraine’s ‘Fortress Belt’
Ukraine’s fortified military positions in Donetsk are referred to as the country’s “fortress belt,” running roughly 31 miles north to south, through four major cities and some smaller settlements, according to an ISW analysis. The area had a pre-war population close to 400,000 but estimates put the current number at 250,000 people.
The major cities provide a dense urban environment that is logistically challenging to take, but Ukraine has spent years investing in other defenses that have so-far succeeded in blocking Russia from gaining major ground. The geography is also an advantage. The Ukrainian positions are on higher ground and withdrawing would put them in open fields, according to analysts.
“Russian forces would have to wage a years-long, bloody campaign to seize the remainder of Donetsk Oblast militarily, as they currently have no means of rapidly enveloping or penetrating Ukrainian defensive positions here,” Mappes said.
“Putin’s demand for all of Donetsk Oblast would have Ukraine cede this defensive line and withdraw to new positions that Ukraine has not had time to prepare, which would place Ukrainian forces at a significant disadvantage upon the resumption of hostilities.”
Details of Russia’s offer on Donetsk are not public, but Russia is reportedly offering to freeze the frontline positions at Zhaporzhzhia and Kherson, and withdraw from territory in Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, in exchange for Ukraine handing over the rest of the Donbas.
The territory represents one of Russia’s main failuresover the course of 11 years of fighting, since Moscow launched its initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and grabbed significant swaths of the east.
Russia grabbed more territory with its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and holds control of nearly all of Luhansk, about three-quarters of Donetsk, and three-quarters of Zhaporzhzhia and Kherson, in the southeast and on the Black Sea. Russia also holds small pockets of territory on Ukraine’s northeastern border, Sumy and Kharkiv.
‘Money on the table’
On top of the military advantage, Ukrainian-controlled territory of Donetsk also holds significant natural resources, including hydrocarbon, natural gas, coal, uranium and lithium. Some extraction operations have frozen in the midst of the war or come under Russian control, while other reserves have yet to be tapped.
The so-called mineral deal between the U.S. and Ukraine, signed in April, allows for profit-sharing in mining and developing those types of extractions – when the war ends. Ceding that territory to Russia could impact America’s bottom line.
“If Ukraine were to maintain sovereignty over those areas, the profits from their development would then be paid out in part to the U.S. as a result of the minerals deal,” said Andrew D’Anieri, associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
“So letting Russia take them is leaving money on the table for the United States in a deal that President Trump himself initiated.”
‘Significant human rights issues’
On top of military and economic concerns, the human cost is stark for Ukrainians living in the area. Reports by human rights groups, the State Department and international bodies have documented “significant human rights issues,” gross violations of human rights and war crimes carried out by Russia.
Arbitratry arrest, torture, extrajudicial killings are some of Russia’s offenses against Ukrainians in occupied territories. Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children, which Moscow calls a humanitarian effort to move them from zones of conflict, was labeled as a war crime by the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for Putin and another top official.
On the level of daily life, water shortages in Russian-occupied Ukraine, specifically Donetsk, highlight a man-made crisis because of Russia’s mismanagement of resources, Mappes pointed out.
“Russia has an obligation under international law to provide for the basic needs of Ukrainians under Russian occupation, and Russia seems to be actively working against this obligation,” she said.
Security guarantees
President Trump has urged Zelensky to get on board with “land swaps” with Russia, and made a point to publish photos showing the two presidents deep in conversation, standing in front of a blown up map of Ukraine, with Russia’s occupied positions identified, while meeting in the Oval Office on August 18.
Zelensky has rejected the idea of pulling forces from Donetsk, while signalling an openness to freezing the frontlines, effectively ceding parts of the country to indefinite Russian control – but only if Ukraine receives ironclad security guarantees to deter future Russian aggression.
As part of such an arrangement, Ukraine also wants Russia to cede its claims of annexing Ukrainian territory beyond what it currently occupies, D’Anieri said.
“I’m not exactly sure how you do this diplomatically, but essentially, because Russia has claimed that Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are parts of Russia, they [the Ukrainians] want them to change that domestically and ideally, in a binding agreement that they actually will not pursue further territorial claims in those regions,” he said.
Ukraine has also called for the deployment of an international security presence to be stewards of any peace deal, with France and the United Kingdom offering their soldiers and putting out a call for others among a “coalition of the willing.”
But Russia has rejected the idea that soldiers from NATO member serving in Ukraine as part of security guarantees, and has repeated other maximalist demands of putting limits on Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
Even if Ukraine agreed to cede Donetsk in exchange for everything it wants for its security guarantees, it’s unclear Russia would sign off.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Russia’s view, Zelensky is an illegitimate leader, code for Russia wanting a new, pro-Russian government in Ukraine, as it has long demanded.
Trump dismissed Lavrov’s comments, speaking during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
“It doesn’t matter what they say. It’s all bulls—. Everybody’s posturing,” he said.
