The US is clearly putting pressure on Kiev to give up the well-defended Donbas region. However, Russia is not making the desired progress there – and it clearly knows it, writes the German newspaper Tagesspiegel.
What Russia is failing to achieve on the battlefield, it is trying to achieve diplomatically – and is receiving help from Washington. This impression is currently growing.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump is making the security guarantees, which are important to Kiev, conditional: the guarantees will only be provided if Ukraine gives up Donbas in return.
Russia has not yet fully occupied the resource-rich region in eastern Ukraine. On the contrary, it seems that it will take a long time for Russia to do so. This is related to the so-called “fortress belt“. It consists of the four cities of Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka and Konstantinovka.
Russian armed forces made unsuccessful attempts to capture the fortress belt in 2014 and 2022. Such an operation in the fifth year of the war is likely to last several years and result in significant losses in personnel and equipment, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in an analysis.
Although the Russian army has apparently launched a spring offensive around the “fortress belt“, Ukrainian counterattacks are disrupting this already costly endeavor.
The Kremlin knows that the capture of the fortress belt by Russian forces on the battlefield is not inevitable and therefore demands that Ukraine cede the unoccupied territories to the Donetsk region. This would allow Russia to avoid further personnel losses, save material resources, and be in a better position for future attacks – even after a ceasefire.