The United States, Russia, and Ukraine rarely agree on anything. But as delegations from both countries met in Abu Dhabi for the first trilateral meeting since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, they appeared to have come to the same conclusion: Only one issue remained to be resolved.
At issue is territory, the eastern region of Ukraine known as Donbass. And based on their comments at the meeting, the issue is unlikely to go away.
“Everything is a question of the east of our country, everything is a question of land,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, pointing to Russia’s long-standing and previously rejected demand that Kiev relinquish parts of the Donbas still under its control.
Although US President Donald Trump has touted that a deal is close, Zelenskiy reiterated on Thursday that Ukraine is not ready to hand over any of its territory to Russia. And in a speech after Thursday’s meeting with President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkov, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov made it clear that Russia had no intention of compromising either.
He warned that there could be no long-term solution “without resolving territorial issues” and repeatedly threatened that Russia would continue pursuing its goals “on the battlefield” until an agreement was reached.
Donetsk and Luhansk, two coal-rich eastern regions of Ukraine known collectively as Donbass, were once the country’s industrial heartland.
The region is a major steel manufacturing powerhouse and is well connected to the Sea of Azov by rivers and man-made canals. It is also known for its fertile farmland and rich mineral deposits.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made no secret of the fact that he believes Ukraine does not have the right to exist as an independent country, denying the sovereignty it gained in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He claimed that Ukraine and Ukrainians were part of a larger “historic Russia” and repeatedly accused Kiev, without any evidence, of committing “genocide” against Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.
Historically, Donbass was the most “Russian” region of Ukraine and had a significant Russian-speaking population. And it was in Donbass that Putin’s mission to destabilize and conquer Ukraine began in 2014.
In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea in southern Ukraine after a covert military operation by highly trained Russian soldiers who wore no insignia.
At the same time, Russia began supporting and assisting pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, helping them wrest control of parts of Luhansk and Donetsk, including the regional capital, from the then poorly prepared and poorly motivated Ukrainian army.
Although Russia has long maintained that it has no soldiers on the ground, U.S., NATO and Ukrainian officials all claim that the Russian government has provided support to the separatists, provided them with advisory support and intelligence, and integrated their own officers into their ranks.
In one particularly horrifying incident, separatists used a Russian-supplied Soviet-era Buk surface-to-air missile to shoot down civilian flight MH17, killing 298 people. A Dutch court has found two Russians and a separatist Ukrainian citizen guilty of genocide for their involvement in the destruction of Flight MH17, although the Russian government has repeatedly denied responsibility.
According to Ukrainian statistics, a low-intensity war has smoldered on the Donbas front for almost eight years, killing around 14,000 people.
Then, in February 2022, President Putin announced that Russia would recognize the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) as independent states.
Three days later, he launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
President Putin has spent almost 12 years trying to take control of Donbass by military means.
However, although Russian forces are far superior and better-armed than Ukrainian forces, Russia has so far failed to seize control of the entire region. Russian forces control most of the Luhansk region, but have only managed to control 70% of Donetsk, despite devoting significant resources to the battle.
It is the remaining part of Donetsk that Russia is determined to give up by Ukraine. About two-thirds of that land is controlled by Ukraine, and one-third is no-man’s land where fighting continues.
President Putin and his aides have repeatedly threatened to seize territory by force if Kiev does not give up territory. However, progress on the front was very slow and costly. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said last week that an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 Russian soldiers are killed every month. Russia has not disclosed the number of casualties.
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based conflict watchdog, estimates that at current profit rates, it will take Russia another year and a half to capture the remaining parts of Donbass under Kiev’s control.
President Zelenskiy has repeatedly emphasized that permanent territorial concessions are non-negotiable. Even if Ukrainians vote to give up their land, which is unlikely, according to polls, the deal would still be illegal under international law, which prohibits the use of force to conquer another country’s territory.
Instead, Kiev, with the support of Europeans, has shown a readiness to recognize the situation on the ground in a potential cease-fire agreement to stop the killings.
This would likely mean freezing the conflict along existing fronts and effectively giving up on efforts to regain territory while the ceasefire lasts.
But losing the remaining Donbass would also make Ukraine even more vulnerable to future Russian aggression. The region includes a “fortress zone” of industrial cities, railways and roads that form the backbone of Ukraine’s defense and provide supplies to the front lines.
Kiev has spent years consolidating the area, and losing it would greatly expand the rest of eastern Ukraine.
Details of the latest proposal have not been made public, but Zelenskiy said “variations” could be offered at the Abu Dhabi meeting.
However, Ukrainian leaders said in December that one of the proposals proposed by the United States was to create a “free economic zone” in parts of the Donbas region still under Ukrainian control. He said the proposal would see Ukraine withdraw from these areas in exchange for security.
The United States has not disclosed details of the proposal, and it is unclear whether Russia will accept it. Ushakov’s comments on the territory ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks did not signal a readiness to compromise.
International human rights organizations and survivors who managed to escape, as well as Ukrainian authorities and news organizations including CNN, have documented numerous human rights violations throughout the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.
Allegations include arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, and complete suppression of civil rights. Russia denies the accusations despite sufficient evidence.
The latest UN report on the human rights situation in Ukraine, released in November, found that “Russian occupation authorities continue to restrict the rights of civilians and violate fundamental provisions of international humanitarian law.”
Ukrainians living under Russian occupation have told CNN they are forced to accept Russian passports or risk losing their homes, their children are indoctrinated in schools and special “re-education” camps, and attempts to resist are punished with violence.
