Ukraine’s Donetsk region seen as Russia’s gateway, not the ultimate prize in war
The Donetsk region, Ukraine (AP)-a 33-year-old soldier from a shelter in East Ukraine, asks his comrade to fly a reconnaissance drone in his childhood house and hopes for a last look before he becomes just another city by fighting for years.
The soldier took a gun to defend his region ten years ago, DonetskUkraine has been struggling with Russian -supported forces since 2014. Battlefield developments in Donetsk are considered as an indicator of each side of each side. in the war.
Ukraine lost control of about 70% of the region in a fight for more than 10 years.
In his shelter, which was close to the beloved Kostantynivka, where Russian forces were constantly closed, he said, ım I watched the destruction of my school, which was once a community center I once put down the dance lessons into rubble.
“All life is flashing in front of your eyes – the days when I am a little girl, places and moments that are valuable to me,” he said.
Industrial Heart Destroyed
Before 2014, the Donetsk region, which hosted more than 4 million people, was one of the most densely populated areas of Ukraine and was an important industrial, political and economic center. However, according to a report of the Kiev School of Economic School, Russia’s full -scale invasion in February 2022 met the burden of the country’s financial losses due to full -scale invasion in February 2022 and suffered approximately $ 14.4 billion to Ukrainian enterprises.
According to the International Organization for Migration, Donetsk residents constitute approximately one -quarter of Ukraine’s built -in population, and once ruined, an active battlefield or once occupied, with most of the powerful industrial heart.
As in Ukraine, Fox did not lose a house for the first time. In 2022, the Russian forces seized Mariupol, the city of Southern Donetsk, where he lived. This year, he followed the crawling of the front of the city where he was born.
Why Donetsk?
The most active tension of the façade line of 1,250 kilometers (780 miles) is the Donetsk region, where both sides gain earnings before winter sets and slow the speed of the war.
Russia is already most of Donbas – with Donetsk and its neighbor Luhansk – with the two southern regions, illegal annexed Three years ago.
Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Kiev to quit the rest of his control, Analysts Believe He would give Moscow a permanent launch ramp to threaten other parts of Ukraine. When the bets are too high, Ukraine is determined to resist at all costs and to defend every inch it still holds.
According to Taras Chmut, the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, a military analyst and director, the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, while Russia will have to pass the Dnipro River to advance in Kherson, it offers its own logistics difficulties due to its own logistics difficulties because of its flat and exposed land.
Chmut says that Russia’s actions in Sumy and Kharkiv – the regions in the Northeast, where Moscow has a basis – is not grabbing a serious land, but a bargaining chip for future negotiations, although US President Donald Trump stops at the negotiation table.
“When you can’t join the table, you accept the battlefield,” Chmut said. “Russia will stand where it was forced to stop, not where it chooses.”
Pavlo Yurchuk, the commander of the 63th Brigade, who has been trying to stop the Russian progress in Donetsk for more than a decade, believes that the intense war in the region has been directed by more politics than military logic because it makes large -scale progress extremely difficult.
“There is no strategic advantage to carry out rapid attack operations in this field, Yur Yurchuk said to journalists, referring to a river network, including the channels that support the defender and thousands of fortified villages, basements and shelters.
However, Putin described the region as Russian historically with its proximity to Russia, historical economic ties and the Soviet legacy of the imposed Russian language.
Yurchuk said, “Some of the Kremlin population convinced that the region is ethnicly Russian and therefore ‘should be liberated,” he said.
My home is all Ukraine
For Ukraine, the Donetsk region is the place where new generation of professional soldiers grew up in ten years of hostility.
“A lot of blood is shed here and there will be more,” he said, a Azov company commander passing by GrosSer.
Groser, a citizen of Western Ukraine, can earn a profit if Ukraine intensifies all its power. But this is not possible because “He (Putin) will continue to pressure all the fronts.”
After years of fighting for the control of the region, Ukrainians are afraid that their decline will not only lose thousands of lives, but also not condemn the country to instability. And he believes that the ambitions of Russia will end with Donetsk.
Yurchuk said, “If we need to fight for three more years for 30 kilometers, we’ll fight for three more years for 30 kilometers,” Yurchuk said.
Fox said he didn’t just fight for his roots in the Donetsk region.
“You don’t fight for a single building or city anymore, Fox said Fox AP. “Now my house is Ukraine.”
___
Associated Press journalists Vasilisa Stepanenko and Yeahor Konovalov contributed to this report.
