US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called resolving the territorial dispute over Ukraine's Donetsk region “the only remaining key issue” in US-brokered talks to end the war. But Russia disputed this.
As Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are set to reconvene in Abu Dhabi next week for peace talks brokered by the Trump administration, at least one fundamental issue remains unresolved: the fate of the Donetsk region, The New York Times explains in a wide-ranging analysis.
For months, Russian officials have suggested that Moscow will not stop fighting until Ukraine cedes the 5,400 square kilometers of Donetsk region still under Kiev's control.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during a hearing in the US Senate on Wednesday, said that the issue of the Donetsk region has become the “only remaining point” in the peace negotiations that needs attention, noting that “it is still an obstacle that we have not overcome.”
A day later, however, Moscow disputed this claim. Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said there are other issues that need to be addressed, including the security guarantees Western countries have offered Ukraine.
Even so, it is clear that the strip of territory in the Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk region is at the heart of the negotiations. And this raised the question: why does Russian President Vladimir Putin attach so much importance to this area, compared to other pieces of Ukrainian territory that Moscow claims?
Symbolism and state propaganda
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, Donetsk has been at the center of Moscow's attempts to break off and then annex the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial region of eastern Ukraine, which the Kremlin describes as historically Russian.
Russia has built much of its state propaganda around the idea of saving the population of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, collectively known as Donbas. Russia has already managed to take full control of the Luhansk region.
In the fall of 2022, the Kremlin announced that it had annexed four regions of Ukraine: Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye.
Russian negotiators appear to have dropped their claim to take over the parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions that Russia does not already control. But if Kiev also retained a significant part of Donetsk, Putin could face backlash from nationalist and pro-war elements in his own support base.
The portion of Donetsk region that Ukraine still holds has symbolic importance. This includes Sloviansk, the city where Moscow launched what it called a pro-Russian “separatist” uprising in 2014. A failure by Moscow to capture the city, which Russian propaganda describes as the cradle of the “Russian Spring”, after 12 years of attempts, could increase criticism from pro-war nationalists.
Taking over the rest of the Donetsk region would also help Putin build a narrative of victory.
“If you can get something at the negotiating table that you couldn't get by force, then the question of who won the war and who dictated the terms of its end will be answered,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank in Berlin. “There will probably be no credible way to present the situation as a strategic defeat for Russia and a victory for Ukraine.”
Putin knows that any decision by Kiev to cede territory would be particularly controversial inside Ukraine, where soldiers have been dying for that territory for 12 years, Gabuev added.
“People shed their blood for this,” he said. “Many families lost their loved ones in the fighting in Donbas. And now you give it up? It's a ticking time bomb under the unity of Ukraine.”
In comments on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was prepared to make compromises to end the war, but not to compromise Ukraine's territorial integrity.
In December, Zelenskiy said he was willing to withdraw his troops from the Kiev-controlled part of Donetsk region and turn those areas into a demilitarized zone. But he specified that Russia would have to withdraw its forces from an equivalent portion of territory in Donetsk.
Fortifications and water
The part of Donetsk region that Ukraine still controls is one of the most heavily fortified areas of the front, as defense systems date back to 2014, before Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
And the loss of those fortifications would make Ukraine more vulnerable to any future Russian attack, some analysts said, positioning Moscow favorably to launch another invasion if the peace deal fails.
The city of Donetsk, the capital of the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, was hit by a severe water crisis last year and continues to face water shortage issues.
A canal that supplied water to the region, known as the Siverski Donetsk-Donbass Canal, was destroyed at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. It also starts northeast of Sloviansk, in territory still controlled by Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin was asked about these water shortage issues during his annual conference in December. He explained that the main source of water catchment is in a territory that is “unfortunately still under the control of the enemy”.
The Russian leader said the issue could be “fundamentally resolved” once “this territory is under the control of our armed forces.”
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