Giving Putin the Donbas would hand Moscow powerful leverage over Kyiv's financial survival

The Donbas, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, is Ukraine's industrial heartland where coal mining and steel production are the main drivers of economic growth. Ultimately, control of the region's mines and factories would hand Moscow powerful leverage over Kyiv's post-war economic survival.

"Donbas offers both a military advantage and significant economic resources, making it a high-value target for the Kremlin," explained Elina Beketova, a fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

"The Donbas alone holds vast reserves of coal - especially anthracite, crucial for energy and metallurgy," Beketova said. "Of 114 mines in Donetsk region, only 15 remain functional," she pointed out, as many have been flooded, destroyed, or left inoperable by the war.

Coal tells only half the story. 

Perhaps the crown jewel is salt: the Soledar salt mines, with an estimated 4.5 billion tons of rock salt - making it the largest reserve in Europe. These mines and the Artyomsol plant, Europe's largest salt producer, fell to Russian forces in 2022.

Beketova underscored that, in the long term, natural gas could be the most strategically important resource in the region.

"The region includes the Yuzivka gas field in Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts, with potential reserves of up to 4 trillion cubic meters - a direct challenge to Russian energy dominance, and likely another reason why Moscow wants full control of the area."

"Beyond coal, salt, and gas, the occupied territories of Donbas - as well as neighboring Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - are also rich in gypsum, chalk, marble, granite, sand and clay," Beketova said.

Russian forces currently occupy approximately one-fifth of Ukraine's territory, primarily in the eastern and southeastern regions, including large swaths of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. These areas have been under partial or full Russian control at various points over the course of the Kremlin's war. 

For Kyiv, the Donbas is more than contested ground - it is an economic lifeline, whose coal, salt and gas reserves could help bankroll recovery in a country already burdened with enormous post-war debts.

Of the total long-term reconstruction and recovery needs, housing accounts for the largest share at nearly $84 billion, followed by $78 billion needed for the transportation industry and $68 billion for the energy sector.

Zelenskyy told reporters at the European Commission on Sunday that Putin has repeatedly tried and failed to seize the entirety of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine for a period of 12 years. 

Grace Mappes, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, noted that conceding the region would also mean relinquishing Ukraine's "fortress belt," the fortified defensive line in Donetsk Oblast since 2014.

"After trying and failing to occupy this strategically vital terrain for over a decade, Putin is now demanding that Ukraine concede this critical defensive position, which Russian forces currently have no means of rapidly enveloping or penetrating, apparently in exchange for nothing and with no guarantee that fighting will not resume."

Mappes added that Ukraine's substantial investment in reinforcing its "fortress belt" with defensive structures, logistics hubs, and defense industrial facilities, underscores its central role in the country's military resilience.

"Putin's proposal is not a compromise, rather a ploy to avoid the years-long, bloody campaign that would be necessary to seize the fortress belt and the rest of Donetsk militarily," she added.