As negotiations continue to drag on between Washington, Kyiv and Moscow, the Kremlin’s narrative about the war has centered on one potential solution: evicting Ukrainian forces from the Donbas.
Not by force, of course. After nearly four years of continuous, devastating war, Russian troops are still bogged down in eastern Ukraine, gaining minuscule amounts of territory at terrifyingly high costs. Instead, the Kremlin is banking on convincing the United States to strong-arm Ukraine into unilaterally ceding the territory. As envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who has led negotiations from the Russian side, posted on Tuesday, “Donbas withdrawal is the path to peace for Ukraine.”
But for those who’ve followed the narratives Russia has spun over the past few years, the idea that simply swapping slices of territory in the Donbas could end the fighting belies what this war is really about. As we approach twelve years since Russian troops first swarmed into Ukraine, claiming Crimea and shedding blood across eastern Ukraine, it’s worth re-examining the Kremlin’s rationale for why it launched the war in the first place. In messaging for audiences both domestic and foreign, it’s easy to see how and why this war was never about the status of the Donbas – and how and why the war has always been about far, far more.
The claims hinge on a simple idea: that the origins of this war, and the solution toward ending it, are largely about sovereignty over Donbas. These claims have, by all appearances, found a receptive audience in negotiating partners like Steve Witkoff, who apparently believes control of the Donbas is the key to ending the war. They might even find receptivity among audiences who are exhausted by war, or who have forgotten about all the reasons the Kremlin laid out for its invasion in early 2022.
