For more than ten years, Russia has been trying to gain full control of the Donetsk region, yet even after four years of full-scale war it has not reached the region’s administrative borders. As Novosti Donbassa notes, Moscow is continuing combat operations while simultaneously pushing the idea of transferring the region without a fight.
According to a January poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 54% of Ukrainians firmly reject handing all of Donbas to Russia in exchange for security guarantees. The outlet reports that before February 24, 2022, Russia controlled about 30% of the region; after launching the invasion, it seized up to another 40%, but only after battles lasting months and even years for Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Vuhledar. Fighting for Chasiv Yar, Toretsk and Pokrovsk is still underway.
“Our task is to protect peaceful cities and their residents, while the issue of handing over territory without a fight is a political one,” said Anastasiia Bobovnykova, spokesperson for the 11th Army Corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, commenting on the increasingly frequent strikes on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Military analyst Oleksii Hetman believes that because of its difficulties on the battlefield, the Kremlin is resorting to territorial ultimatums. In his view, the claim that the war would end if Kyiv made concessions is merely a pretext for continuing aggression: even if territory were hypothetically ceded, Moscow would put forward new demands. Hetman says only a halt along the current line of contact could be discussed as a frozen conflict, but stresses that “no one will hand over the territory.”
In December 2025, Volodymyr Zelensky said he was open to discussing a Washington-backed model of a “free economic zone” in government-controlled areas, provided there was a mirrored troop withdrawal. After the Munich conference, however, he said Kyiv would not agree to withdraw Ukrainian forces from Donbas without reliable security guarantees, calling such concessions “madness.”
Later, in an interview with Axios, Zelensky said Ukrainian society would not allow eastern Donbas to be transferred to Russia and that any such agreement would be rejected. He also insisted that any arrangement must include a mutual troop withdrawal and be put to a referendum. Political analyst Ihor Chalenko, meanwhile, argues that the voluntary transfer of Kyiv-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions is unrealistic, and that changing Ukraine’s Constitution during wartime would violate Article 157.