Putin has continued to demand that Ukraine leave the last chunk of Donbas his troops have yet to seize. Zelenskyy has continued to insist that Ukraine would not give up at the negotiating table what its troops have successfully denied Russia on the battlefield.
So: after nearly four years of war in which Ukraine has lost 12 percent of its territory, more than a fifth of its economy, and two thirds of its electrical infrastructure; suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties; and seen about a quarter of its citizens displaced.
Donetsk is an oblast (state) of Ukraine roughly the size of Massachusetts (10,238 square miles). As reported in last week’s Russia Matters' Russia-Ukraine War Report Card, Ukraine still controls about a quarter of this oblast (2,250 square miles).
For perspective, see this map from Russia Matters attached. The territory Russian troops have captured is colored pink. This includes essentially all of Luhansk; and 78% of Donetsk. The purple area highlights the 2,250 square miles of Donetsk still held by Ukrainian forces.
Summarized accurately today: 11% of the Donbas region (which is 22% of the oblast of Donetsk) remains under Ukrainian control.
In exchange for these 2,250 square miles, Putin has offered to trade the roughly 500 square miles of Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts that Russia has also captured.
If Ukraine and Russia are unable to agree on a ceasefire, and the fighting continues as it has for the past year, by this time next year Russian troops will likely have completed their seizure of all of Donbas.
Strategically: Ukraine’s challenge is to find a way to trade the remainder of Donetsk for stronger security guarantees of whatever peace/ceasefire can be achieved.
ფორუმელების წინასწარმეტყველება უკრაინის ომზე, ვნახოთ ვინ როგორ გაარტყა/გაარტყამს
