Why Donetsk counts so much for the defenses of Ukraine against Russia

One of the main points to remember from the summit in Alaska is that Russian President Vladimir Putin wishes to freeze the war in Ukraine along his current front line in exchange for the restoration of the Donetsk region.

Russia holds around 70% of the region (OBLAST), including the regional capital of the same name, after more than a decade of fighting in which Donetsk and Luhansk Voisins were the bleeding heart of the conflict.

For Russia to earn everything Donetsk would cement its international demand unrecognized with the oblast and would avoid new military losses.

So that Ukraine does not withdraw from the west of Donetsk would mean serious loss not only of land, with the prospect of a new exodus of refugees, but from the fall of a rampart against any future Russian advance.

Here we look why the territory counts so much.

According to an estimate of the Reuters news agency, Ukraine still holds around 6,600 km2 (2,548 miles m²) of territory in Donetsk.

About a quarter of a million people remain there recently, local officials said.

The main urban centers include Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, Kostyantynivka and Druzhkivka.

It is part of the main industrial region of Ukraine, the Donbas (Basin de Donets), although its economy has been devastated by war.

“The reality is that these resources will probably not be able to be accessible for at least a decade at least because of the mines (terrestrial) …”, told Reuters Dr. Marnie Howlett, lecturer in Russian and Eastern Europe at the University of Oxford.

“These lands were completely destroyed, these completely flattened cities.”

A recent report from the United States Institute for the Study of War (ISW) describes a “fortress belt” operating 50 km (31 miles) via Western Donetsk.

“Ukraine has spent the last 11 years paying time, money and efforts to strengthen the fortress belt and establish an important industrial and defensive infrastructure of defense,” he wrote.

Reports in the region are talking about trenches, bunkers, mine fields, anti -tank obstacles and barbed wire.

The Russian forces attacking in the direction of Pokrovsk “are engaged in an effort to grasp it which would probably take several years to finish,” said the ISW.

The fortifications are certainly part of the Ukrainian defense, but the topography too.

“The terrain is quite defensible, in particular the height of Chasiv Yar which has subscribed to the Ukrainian line,” said Nick Reynolds, researcher for land war at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), based in the Royal United Institute (RUSI).

However, he adds: “If you look at the Donbas topography, in eastern Ukraine in general, overall, the terrain does not really promote Ukrainians.”

“The city of Donetsk is high terrain. Everything is down as you go west, which is not great for Ukrainians in terms of defensive operations management.

“It is not only a question of relying for the tight fight or the difficulties which rise and descend, largely, it is also a question of observation and therefore the capacity to coordinate artillery fires and other forms of fire support without putting drones.

“Likewise, high bits are better for the spread of radio waves, better for the coordination of drones.”

CHASIV YAR, whom the Russians recently said they had captured, “is one of the last high-level pieces that the Ukrainians control,” he said.

Intelligence via satellite imagery, whether provided by Ukraine’s international or commercial partners, is very important, notes Reynolds, “but it is not the same as being directly able to coordinate its own tactical missions”.

Western Donetsk is only a small part of a front line which extends over about 1,100 km, but he saw some of the most ferocious Russian attacks this summer.

But were in Moscow to channel its land forces in a different direction, it is doubtful that they are progressing better progress.

“In the South, the front line of Zaporizhzhia is now very similar to that of the Donbas, which would only fight through large defensive positions,” explains Reynolds.

“The Russians face the same problem while trying to denigrate in the North, so they certainly do not push an open door.”

In theory, in the event of a peace contract, the Ukrainians could replace their line further west.

There would, of course, be the question of unfavorable land, and the construction of deep defenses would take time, even with the help of civil entrepreneurs who do not have to work under fire.

But theory is one thing and the research researcher on the Rusi earth war cannot see the Ukrainian army abandon the Western Donetsk without fighting.

“Even if the Trump administration is trying to use undergoing American support or security guarantees as a leverage,” said Nick Reynolds, “on the basis of the previous Russian behavior, based on the explicit transactional approach that the American administration has adopted, it is difficult to see how the Ukrainian government would like to abandon this territory.”

The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country would reject any Russian proposal to abandon the Donbas region in exchange for a cease-fire, arguing that the eastern territory could be used as a springboard for future attacks.