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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has firmly rejected proposals to concede land to Russian President Vladimir Putin, notably the hotly-contested Donbas area.
The Donbas, which incorporates Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, is Ukraine’s industrial heartland the place coal mining and metal manufacturing are the primary drivers of financial progress. Finally, management of the area’s mines and factories would hand Moscow highly effective leverage over Kyiv’s post-war financial survival.
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A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a destroyed coal mine of Butovka on the entrance line with Russia-backed separatists not removed from the city of Avdiivka within the Donetsk area. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Photographs)
“Donbas affords each a army benefit and important financial sources, making it a high-value goal for the Kremlin,” defined Elina Beketova, a fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program on the Heart for European Coverage Evaluation.
“The Donbas alone holds huge reserves of coal – particularly anthracite, essential for vitality and metallurgy,” Beketova mentioned. “Of 114 mines in Donetsk area, solely 15 stay practical,” she identified, as many have been flooded, destroyed, or left inoperable by the struggle.
Coal tells solely half the story.
Maybe the crown jewel is salt: the Soledar salt mines, with an estimated 4.5 billion tons of rock salt—making it the most important reserve in Europe. These mines and the Artyomsol plant, Europe’s largest salt producer, fell to Russian forces in 2022.
A soldier walks in entrance of the damaged energy traces and the Artyomsol salt mine infrastructure broken resulting from hostilities on December 20, 2022 within the Donetsk Oblast, in Ukraine. (Viktor Fridshon/World Photographs Ukraine/Getty Photographs)
Beketova underscored that, in the long run, pure fuel may very well be essentially the most strategically essential useful resource within the area.
“The area consists of the Yuzivka fuel area in Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts, with potential reserves of as much as 4 trillion cubic meters—a direct problem to Russian vitality dominance, and certain one more reason why Moscow needs full management of the realm.”
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“Past coal, salt, and fuel, the occupied territories of Donbas—in addition to neighboring Zaporizhzhia and Kherson—are additionally wealthy in gypsum, chalk, marble, granite, sand, and clay,” Beketova mentioned.
Russian forces at present occupy roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, primarily within the jap and southeastern areas, together with massive swaths of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. These areas have been below partial or full Russian management at varied factors over the course of the Kremlin’s struggle.
A map from the Institute for the Research of Battle and AEI’s Crucial Threats Undertaking that exhibits Russia’s territorial management of Ukraine as of Aug. 11, 2025. (Institute for the Research of Battle and AEI’s Crucial Threats Undertaking)
For Kyiv, the Donbas is greater than contested floor—it’s an financial lifeline, whose coal, salt, and fuel reserves may assist bankroll restoration in a rustic already burdened with monumental post-war money owed.
The newest joint evaluation by the United Nations, World Financial institution, European Fee, and Ukrainian authorities estimates that Kyiv faces $524 billion in post-war reconstruction over the following decade.
Of the overall long-term reconstruction and restoration wants, housing accounts for the most important share at almost $84 billion, adopted by $78 billion wanted for the transportation business and $68 billion for the vitality sector.
A view of the ruined and deserted city of Maryinka within the Donetsk area on April 1, 2025. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Photographs)
Zelenskyy advised reporters on the European Fee on Sunday that Putin has repeatedly tried and didn’t seize the whole lot of the Donbas area in jap Ukraine for a interval of 12 years.
Grace Mappes, an analyst on the Institute for the Research of Battle, famous that conceding the area would additionally imply relinquishing Ukraine’s “fortress belt,” the fortified line of defense in Donetsk Oblast since 2014.
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“After making an attempt and failing to occupy this strategically important terrain for over a decade, Putin is now demanding that Ukraine concede this vital defensive place, which Russian forces at present don’t have any technique of quickly enveloping or penetrating, apparently in change for nothing and with no assure that preventing won’t resume.”
Ukrainian troopers take part in a army coaching drill at an undisclosed location because the struggle between Russia and Ukraine has been occurring for the final 2 years, in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on March 06, 2024. (Jose Colon/Anadolu/Getty Photographs)
Mappes added that Ukraine’s substantial funding in reinforcing its “fortress belt” with defensive constructions, logistics hubs, and protection industrial services, underscores its central position within the nation’s army resilience.
“Putin’s proposal just isn’t a compromise, fairly a ploy to keep away from the years-long, bloody marketing campaign that might be essential to seize the fortress belt and the remainder of Donetsk militarily,” she added.
