“The Donbas was highly industrialized in the mid-20th century, though it became something of a Rust Belt after the Cold War,” said Mark F. Cancian, a senior adviser with the defense and security department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Donbas also has mineral resources, and its farmland “is some of the best in the world,” Cancian said.
A second factor is the region’s strategic value. Its port of Mariupol provides Black Sea access, and as “the longest-lasting battlefield in the war,” it’s one that both sides would be loath to give up, said Erik Herron, a West Virginia University political scientist.
Putin could see control of Donbas as a way to “goad the West and create havoc,” said Richard Arnold, a Muskingum University political scientist.
Perhaps the biggest factor for Russia, though, is that the region is home to many Russian speakers, many of whom migrated there during the Soviet era.
“The Donbas played an important role in Soviet socialist mythology” as home of the archetypal “Soviet man,” said Alexander Motyl, a political scientist at Rutgers University-Newark.
“Russia has made many unsubstantiated claims about the treatment of Russian speakers there by the Ukrainian government,” Herron said. As a result, he said “Donbas is symbolically central to Russia’s story about why the war is happening.”
The Donbas’ value to Russia may be more symbolic than tangible, experts said.
“Donbas is critical to fulfilling the vision of the ‘Russkiy Mir’ — the ‘Russian world’ — that Putin is trying to create,” said Matthew Schmidt, a University of New Haven political scientist.
Donbas region shown in green. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Does Russia have a legitimate claim on the Donbas?
Experts are dubious about any Russian claims on the Donbas.
Russia argues that Ukraine was part of “greater Russia” for 500 years. However, this period ended in 1994 when Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum.
“Ukraine lived up to its part of the agreement, but Russia violated it in 2014” when it seized Crimea, Herron said.
“Just because something was one way once does not make it legitimate now,” Arnold said.
Russia also argues that the region’s Russian speakers want to be part of Russia. But two decades ago, Herron coauthored a study that found that the majority of Russian speakers living in Ukraine saw Ukraine as their homeland and did not look to Russia as a defender of their interests.
“Just because someone may use Russian as their primary language of communication does not mean that they have social and political preferences that align with Moscow,” Herron said. He said subsequent research has supported this view.
As an analogy, experts noted that English-speaking Canadians don’t consider themselves American, while Spanish-speaking Americans often do.
“Lots of Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine, including ethnic Ukrainians, speak or spoke Russian as their first language,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “One of them is Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”
Would Ukraine be willing to give up the Donbas?
The Ukrainian government’s firm position has been to maintain its claim on Donbas, and it’s one widely shared by the Ukrainian public.
“Any land deal is not just about the land, but also about the people who live on that land,” Herron said. “Ukrainians have observed how their friends and relatives have been treated in occupied territories and are not supportive of subjecting more Ukrainians to Russian rule.”
But the possibility of Ukraine acknowledging the military facts on the ground provides some room to maneuver.
Zelensky’s call for a ceasefire would effectively mean continued Russian control of the areas in Donbas that it currently holds, even if Ukraine does not give up its formal, long-term claim.
“The Ukrainians might accept an arrangement whereby they don’t cede sovereignty but accept the situation on the ground,” Cancian said. “Getting some security guarantees from NATO will be critical for any deal.”