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Donbas
Ukraine's eastern coal-and-steel heartland, mostly held by Russia and the crux of peace talks
Donbas, short for the Donets Basin, is the coal-and-steel country of eastern Ukraine and the territory on which any settlement of Russia's war against Ukraine may turn. Fighting began here in 2014, when armed groups backed by Moscow seized parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and it became the central front of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia claims both regions as annexed Russian provinces. Ukraine, and the large majority of UN members, regard them as Ukrainian territory under occupation. As of October 2026 Russia holds nearly all of Luhansk and most of Donetsk, and its central demand in US-mediated talks is that Ukraine withdraw from the rest.
The two oblasts cover about 53,200 square kilometers of rolling steppe cut by the Donets River, scarred by ravines, slag heaps and industrial towns, and reaching south to the Sea of Azov. Before 2014 about 6.5 million people lived here. Russia controls Donetsk, Luhansk, Horlivka, Mariupol, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and, since early 2026, Pokrovsk, which ISW assessed had fallen after a two-year battle. Ukraine still holds a fortified belt of cities in the northwest, including Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka, while fighting has reached the southern districts of Kostiantynivka. On 16 October 2026 ISW assessed that Ukraine controls about 5,530 square kilometers, or 20 percent, of Donetsk oblast. President Putin put the figure at just over 10 percent.
Donbas grew in the 19th century around coal mines and ironworks, drew workers from across the Russian Empire, and became the largely Russian-speaking industrial heartland of Soviet Ukraine. After the 2014 Maidan protests, armed groups backed by Moscow declared the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and the Minsk agreements froze but never ended a war that killed about 14,000 people by 2022, by UN count. Russia declared the regions annexed in September 2022 after referendums that Ukraine and the UN General Assembly rejected. In 2026 US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner shuttled between Moscow and Kyiv. Russia demands the rest of Donbas, Ukraine proposes a ceasefire on the current line backed by security guarantees, and as of October 2026 there is no deal.