Decryption – If the region remains rich in coal and minerals, its infrastructure, in decline before the invasion, were partly destroyed by a decade of fighting. For Moscow, control the entire territory first responds to a political and strategic logic.
During their historical meeting in Alaska, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin discussed the fate of Donbass. Moscow would have claimed, according to several sources, the control of this region made up of the Oblasts of Donetsk and Louhansk. In exchange, the master of the Kremlin would grant the frost frost in two other regions, those of Zaporijia and Kherson. Conditions deemed “Maximalists” by the allies of Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky, expected this Monday in Washington, categorically rejects the idea of abandoning these 55,000 km² largely passed under Russian control.
On the ground, Russia controls almost all of Louhansk’s oblast and around 70 % of that of Donetsk. Some 6,600 km² would remain in the hands of kyiv, where nearly 255,000 people live. Putin has been trying to get her hands on Donbass since 2014, first via pre -rushed separatist militias, then by invading and annexing the region in 2022. Since the start of the war …