(Paris) The Donbass, which Moscow claims to want to “liberate”, is an industrial region located in eastern Ukraine, at the heart of a bloody conflict since 2014 between Kyiv and pro-Russian separatists.
Posted at 1:19 p.m.
With the support of Moscow, the latter took partial control of this predominantly Russian-speaking mining basin, proclaiming there the two separatist “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Of the approximately 6.6 million people who lived in the Donbass until then, according to Ukrainian statistics, many then left, either to Ukraine or to Russia. The exodus has accelerated since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24. No reliable figures are available on its current population.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized their independence on February 21, three days before launching the invasion of Ukraine in the name, among other things, of the “defense” of Russian speakers who, according to him, were discriminated against by Kyiv.
After suffering setbacks, the Russian army announced at the end of March that it was changing its plan to focus on the “liberation of Donbass”. Ukraine has since been preparing for a massive offensive on the part of the region it controls, with the bombardments there intensifying since Monday.
Mining and metallurgical area
The Donbass, whose name is a contraction of “Donets Basin”, is a territory of nearly 55,000 km2 (about twice the size of Belgium), with no administrative existence, which encompasses the two Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
It was for centuries a largely uninhabited territory, shared between Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian Cossacks. Its economic development dates back to the 19th century, under the Russian Empire, with the discovery of the first coal deposits.
This border region of Russia, which extends to the besieged port of Mariupol, on the shores of the Sea of Azov, conceals immense reserves of coal and metal ores, which have made it an industrial heart of the USSR.
It was in this region that the miner Alexei Stakhanov (the origin of the term “stakhanovism”) worked in the 1930s, held up as a model by the Soviet authorities.
A strong identity
Until the 2014 war, the agglomeration of Donetsk, the largest city in Donbass, was the main metallurgical center of Ukraine. The highly urbanized region is still dotted with factories and mines with very difficult working conditions.
The presence of many Russian speakers there is particularly linked to the sending of Russian workers after the Second World War.
This industrial and linguistic heritage has shaped the identity of Donbass, which has kept strong economic and cultural ties with Russia after the fall of the USSR and the independence of Ukraine.
Moscow justifies its support for the separatists by the fact that these Russian speakers would be the object of discrimination, in particular after the pro-European movement of Maidan which caused the fall of the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, in the spring of 2014.
Conflict since 2014
The conflict between Ukrainian forces and separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk erupted in the spring of 2014, following the fall of Mr Yanukovych and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
The Minsk agreements, signed in 2015 thanks to the mediation of France and Germany, aimed to bring peace to the region. But Kyiv and the separatists have accused each other of not respecting them during these eight years of war.
Ukraine and its Western allies also accuse Moscow of having militarily aided the separatists in order to fuel this conflict, which has claimed more than 14,000 lives.
The independence of the “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, proclaimed in 2014 after referendums, is not recognized by the international community.
After Donetsk came under separatist control, it was Kramatorsk – whose train station was hit by a missile on April 8, killing at least 57 people – which became the main city of Donbass under Ukrainian control and which is today today the main target of the Russian offensive.