On Wednesday evening, The New York Times, and later other foreign media outlets, cited high-ranking European officials as saying they knew what Vladimir Putin is asking for from Ukraine and the West in exchange for peace:

• the handover of all of Donbas;
• the official status of the Russian language in Ukraine;
• the protection of the Russian Orthodox Church, which Kiev says is engaged in subversive and espionage activities in Moscow's interests;
• Kiev's exclusion from NATO, though it would reportedly accept other security guarantees.
• In exchange for all this, Russia would make a written promise not to launch any more military operations against Ukraine, and would return small areas in Kharkiv Oblast and other places that Moscow does not claim.

What is Donbass?

The Donbass, also known as the Donetsk Basin, is an industrial region in eastern Ukraine, right next to the Russian border. The extent of the Donbass can be defined in many ways, but when Russian President Vladimir Putin talks about the Donbass, he means the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. The two regions cover an area of 53,000 square kilometers, slightly more than half the size of Hungary.

Who lives here?

The 11 years of fighting in the region have significantly transformed the demographic composition of the Donbass, with many Ukrainians fleeing. Before the war, Luhansk and Donetsk were largely inhabited by Ukrainians, but there was a significant Russian minority, accounting for 38-39 percent of the population in both areas. Many of the ancestors of the Russians came to the area in the hope of work during the industrialization of Tsarist Russia, or because of the Soviet Union's conscious Russification policy targeting the Ukrainian SSR. Ukrainians in the Donbass also prefer to use the Russian language, with 75 percent of households in Donetsk and 68.8 percent in Luhansk speaking Russian as their first language.

Why does Russia want Donbass? It has already occupied it!

Only partially. Moscow has not been able to capture it all militarily to this day. The Ukrainian army still holds small areas of Luhansk Oblast and 30 percent of Donetsk Oblast, although the Russians have been attacking more and more aggressively in recent days. They have targeted one of the most important cities in the Oblast, Pokrovsk, but they would only be able to capture it at the cost of bloody urban battles. Anton Bendarzhevsky, an expert on Russia and the region, said that the largest fortified cities are still in Ukrainian hands: in Donetsk, the Ukrainians have been building the defenses of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk since 2014, and Moscow could only capture these at the cost of very serious casualties.

How did the conflict develop?

After the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, pro-Russian separatist unrest began in the region, and two Moscow-backed breakaway republics were established in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, which were formed at that time, were in an intense armed conflict with Kiev between 2014 and 2015, and then a lower intensity conflict between 2015 and 2022. During this phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war, approximately 14,000 people died on both sides, of which 3,400 were civilians.

Why did the area come up again? 

Russia launched an invasion in 2022, but failed to capture Kiev and install a pro-Russian regime in power. As a secondary goal, it focused its resources on capturing Donbass. In September 2022, Russia formally annexed Donbass, along with two other occupied Ukrainian regions, a move widely condemned by UN countries.

Why does Russia need Donbass?

In a 2021 essay, Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine does not need Donbass and that, in his opinion, Ukraine's borders were not properly drawn after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian president believes that Donbass is historically Russian land that came to Ukraine due to"anti-Russian" forces.

Donbass is also an important industrial region, rich in minerals, coal and lithium, the latter of which is key to battery production and more sustainable development. However, the infrastructure has been devastated by fighting over the past 11 years and will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild after the war.

Would acquiring the territory be enough for Putin?

Anton Bendarzhevsky emphasized that this is a subjective matter: “I do not think that Russia only needs Donbass, since many other territories are and were under Russian occupation. The 2022 was a systematic Russian attack, which was aimed at occupying not only Donbass, but also Ukraine as a whole. By doing so, Russia tried to prevent Kiev’s Western integration and to bring it into its sphere of interest in a similar way to Belarus,” the expert recalled Russia’s original goals, emphasizing that Donbass only emerged as a target later.

How economically useful is the territory for Russia?

In this regard, Bendarzhevsky said that Russia has no need for Donbass in an economic sense, because it is the richest country in raw materials. According to the expert, the claim to the territory is actually a conscious strategy to weaken Ukraine. He pointed out that this area provided 90 percent of Kiev's raw materials and 25 percent of its industrial production.

The Russians can do without Donbass, but annexation would cause huge economic damage to Ukraine

– emphasized the director of the Oeconomus Economic Research Foundation, who added that the Donbass demand is of course also influenced by the fact that Putin needs to show some results domestically after 3 and a half years of war, since the primary goal – namely bringing a pro-Russian regime to power – has not been achieved.

Is there a chance that Ukraine will hand over Donbas to Russia?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky knew as early as Tuesday last week that Vladimir Putin would demand the Donbass, or more precisely the 30 percent of Donetsk Oblast still in Ukrainian hands, in exchange for peace. Although the Ukrainian president will meet Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, he said earlier this week that the transfer of the territory was unconstitutional and could serve as a springboard for another Russian invasion.

According to Anton Bendarzhevsky, Putin has set a trap for the West and Ukraine with this demand. From Volodymyr Zelensky's perspective, it is not a good decision, if he goes along, it will cause great outrage at home, since nearly a hundred thousand people lost their lives defending Donbas. If he refuses, it is almost certain that they will sooner or later lose the Donetsk Basin, because Ukraine can mobilize fewer and fewer soldiers, while Russia - although war exhaustion is also seriously affecting it - has much more reserves.