Russia says it must take the Donbas. But the numbers behind that goal tell a far darker story. Ukrainian officials claim capturing the region could cost Russia up to 800,000 soldiers and nearly two more years of brutal fighting. When you break down the casualty rates, territory gained, and the looming Ukrainian fortress belt, the math becomes terrifying for Moscow. So why is Putin still demanding the Donbas in peace talks? The answer reveals everything.
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00:00Putin has made it clear time and time again, Russia wants the Donbass.
00:04It wants the region so badly that it's still at the heart of every Russian demand made during
00:09peace talks. But Russia will never take the Donbass. Why? The sacrifice that Russia would
00:15have to make would send shockwaves throughout the entire country, and we can see that when
00:19we look at the absolutely insane numbers. Never mind taking Ukraine, Putin is terrified of what
00:25taking the Donbass means for Russia, and we're going to explain why. Let's sum it up before
00:30we jump into the numbers. 18 months and practically all of its troops. That's what it would cost
00:36Russia to take the Donbass, according to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the deputy
00:40head of Ukraine's presidential office, Pavlo Polisa. We'll start with Polisa's comments.
00:45On March 1st, Polisa spoke to Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, where he said that the pace
00:50of the Russian advance in Ukraine is still immensely slow. At the same time, this slow
00:55advance is costing Russia a phenomenal number of soldiers in the Donetsk Oblast, which is
01:00the portion of the Donbass that Russia still needs to bring under full control before it
01:04can lay claim to occupying the entire region.
01:07Consider the current dynamics. It will take them approximately a year and a half to do this,
01:11and a resource equivalent to today's Russian grouping on the territory of Ukraine.
01:14It will be very difficult for them to accomplish this, and it will be far from as fast as they
01:18want, Polisa declared, as he also shared the numbers that Russia lost in 2025 just to claim
01:24a small portion of the Donbass region. All told, Russia took less than 1% of Ukraine
01:29in 2025, at a cost of over 450,000 of its soldiers, Polisa says.
01:34Polisa adds that Ukraine currently still holds about 6,000 square kilometers, or about 2,316
01:40square miles of the Donetsk region, that Russia still needs to capture. Keep that number in
01:45mind. We'll be coming back to it when we look into the maths behind Polisa's claims.
01:49For now, what this all adds up to is that Putin would have to dedicate approximately the
01:53entire force that Russia has in Ukraine, along with at least 18 months, to take the Donbass.
01:59And with each dead Russian soldier, whatever Putin has planned for the rest of Ukraine weakens.
02:04As for Zelensky, his projection for Russia taking the Donbass involves an even longer
02:09timeline than that of his presidential office's deputy head. Ukraine's president says that
02:13the occupation of eastern Ukraine will cost about 800,000 Russian lives, and that it
02:17will take at least two years, and progress will be very slow. In my opinion, they will
02:22not last that long. Zelensky adds that he knows this because the recent history of Russia in
02:27the Donbass region shows that Putin's forces aren't able to take territory quickly enough,
02:32and that Russia is sacrificing enormous numbers of soldiers, not to mention equipment and supplies,
02:36for every square kilometer of the region that it takes. These are all very interesting claims by
02:41Ukraine, and if you stick with us, you'll learn just what it is about the Donbass that makes it such
02:45a
02:45death trap for Putin's invading forces. But before we get to that, we have to ask the big question,
02:50do Ukraine's claims add up? To answer that, we're going to have to dig deeper into the figures.
02:55Thankfully, we have some that reveal just how truthful Ukraine's claims about the Donbass really
03:00are. We'll start with the amount of territory that Russia is capturing in the region, and just what
03:05those captures are costing Putin's forces. On February 24th, Metsa reported that the Russian army was
03:11suffering such enormous losses in the Donetsk region that Ukraine was shredding through
03:16156 of Russia's soldiers for every square kilometer that Putin's forces managed to occupy.
03:21That figure comes from Ukraine's Defense Minister Mikhailo Fedorov, who says that Ukraine's goal is
03:26now to increase these losses to 200 soldiers per square kilometer, which Fedorov says is,
03:32the last level at which advancing becomes impossible. This is an ambitious target for Ukraine,
03:37but for now, let's stick with the 156 figure. We ask you to keep police's claims that Russia still has
03:436,000 square kilometers of Donetsk capture before it can claim to hold the Donbass. This is actually
03:48a disputed figure. In December, Reuters claimed that the number was 5,000 square kilometers,
03:53though it's worth keeping in mind that this was around the time that Russia was claiming to have
03:56occupied territory such as the city of Krovsk that it didn't actually occupy.
04:01Still, that gives us two figures to examine, 5,000 and 6,000 square kilometers left for Russia to take.
04:07Starting with Reuters number, Russia occupying 5,000 square kilometers at this current rate of 156
04:13casualties per square kilometer amounts to a casualty count of 780,000. So even with the lower
04:19figure, we see that Zelensky and his office's deputy head are pretty much right on the money.
04:24Zelensky said that it would take about 800,000 soldiers for Russia to capture the Donbass.
04:28That happens to be even more than the 715,000 soldiers that Russia has deployed into the country,
04:33military, meaning Putin indeed has to expend an entire army to take the Donbass, even in the best
04:38case scenario. As for the worst case, which is that Russia has to take 6,000 square kilometers,
04:43we get a total casualty count of 936,000. That's an absurd figure.
04:48For Russia, it veers uncomfortably close to the almost 1.27 million casualties that Ukraine's
04:53Ministry of Finance claims that Russia has experienced since Putin launched his war,
04:57four years ago. Plus, it s unclear if Metz's figure of 156 casualties per square kilometer in Donetsk
05:04includes Russian soldiers who surrender or go absent without lead. If it doesn t,
05:09Russia may be staring down the barrel of 18 months where it would lose close to a million of its
05:13soldiers just to capture the Donbass. Russia is already at the point where it suffered the largest
05:18losses of any major military power since World War II, as reported by The Independent. What this means for
05:24Putin is that a continued push into the Donbass amounts to him digging an even deeper grave
05:28for a Russian military that is already six feet under and counting. All of this brings us to some
05:33questions. Chiefly, why is Putin so adamant about taking the Donbass when he knows what the cost will
05:39be? And why is the Donbass such a tough nut for Russia to crack? We ll answer the second of
05:44those
05:44questions later in the video, so be sure to stick with us until then. As for why Putin seems so
05:49relentlessly capable of destroying an entire generation of Russian men to take the Donbass,
05:53there are several reasons. The first of which we can trace back to Putin s desire to restore the
05:58Russian Federation to something resembling what Putin sees as the glory years of the Soviet Union.
06:04Francis Farrell, reporting for The Kyiv Independent, explains this Soviet-era desire.
06:08During a brief history lesson where he covers what makes the Donbass so important to Putin,
06:13Farrell focuses on how Russia took advantage of the Donbass region being home to vast amounts of coal
06:17during the Soviet era. During the Soviet Union s industrialization drive,
06:22huge numbers of workers from all over the country, including from the Gulag system,
06:26are relocated to work in the Donetskoblast s mining and heavy industry sectors, Farrell explains.
06:31This gives us two angles to consider for Putin s desire to take the Donbass,
06:35which are that Russia is very well aware of just how valuable this portion of Ukraine is,
06:39and that due to Russia having sent so many of its people into the Donbass during the Soviet era,
06:43Putin still has this warped perception that the Donbass is, and has always been, part of Russia.
06:49It s this perception that is one of the reasons why Putin focused on Donetsk and the other major
06:53Donbass region of Luhansk during his initial campaign of aggression against Ukraine back in 2014.
06:59Putin supported proxy separatist groups in both of these regions during the 2014 campaign,
07:04in addition to sending the Little Green Men, who were essentially covert Russian soldiers sent into
07:09Ukraine to wreak havoc. Although Moscow consistently denied being involved, its fingerprint was
07:14everywhere, Farrell says, adding, from the leaders of the so-called uprising to the way the pro-Russian
07:19forces were financed and armed, never mind the countless direct evidence of the presence of
07:23regular Russian troops. Russia failed to take the Donbass in 2014. But sure enough, it became the focal
07:30point of the country s full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia attacked the Donbass in large part because
07:35Putin claimed from the outset that the so-called Russian people who lived in the region wanted to
07:40be liberated by the Russian Federation. After the complete failure of the initial special military
07:46operation, Russia switched its entire focus to the main goal of liberating the Donbass by April 2022.
07:51Of course, Putin s claims were nonsense. This was highlighted by Good Authority, which reported on
07:58a survey of 4,025 residents of the Donbass, divided equally between those with Ukrainian and Russian
08:03origins. That survey found that 42% of those questioned wanted to remain part of Ukraine,
08:09versus 31% who were happy to be annexed by Russia. Another 9% said they wanted complete independence,
08:15with the rest of the respondents saying that they didn t know what they wanted.
08:18These figures do show that there is a high amount of Russian influence in the Donbass.
08:22However, many of those living in the region prefer being part of Ukraine to any other option,
08:26which immediately rubbishes Putin s claims about whatever supposed liberation he delivers
08:30being something that those in the Donbass desire. But then that s never really been what all of this
08:35is about, has it, Putin? Money lies at the root of why Putin wants the Donbass. But before we go
08:40deeper into that, you are watching The Military Show. If you haven t subscribed yet, now is the perfect time.
08:45For all of Putin s bluster about history and liberation, it s cold, hard cash that drives his
08:51desire to snatch the Donbass away from Ukraine. Specifically, Ukraine s mineral resources, which include
08:56the coal that we mentioned earlier, along with dozens of rare earth minerals and other resources from
09:00which Russia could profit, are in Putin s sights. According to United24 Media, these mineral deposits
09:06are valued at around $15 trillion. And you can probably guess where most of these deposits are.
09:12As United24 Media points out, the primary regions containing these mineral deposits align with areas
09:17targeted or already occupied by Russian forces, including Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizia regions.
09:24The Economic Times adds to this, noting that the Donbass region is among the richest in Ukraine.
09:29It claims that this single region is home to 56% of Ukraine s entire hard coal reserves,
09:35which are among the largest in the world, and valued at $12 trillion on their own.
09:39It s unclear if that means $12 trillion of hard coal in the Donbass alone, or about half that amount.
09:44But either way, there s a lot of money for Russia to make from its push into the Donbass.
09:48The same resource adds that the territory that Russia already occupies in Ukraine,
09:51as of August 2025, means that Russia controls about $12.5 trillion of Ukraine s mineral and
09:57gas assets. Add agriculture and water resources into the mix, which aid in farming throughout
10:02South Ukraine and help to keep Crimea supplied with water amid that region s constant shortages,
10:07and you start to see what it s really all about for Putin. He ll claim history and liberation.
10:12What he means is that it s about filling the Russian coffers, which is more important now,
10:17after a war that has cost Russia over a trillion dollars and counting, than it ever has been before.
10:22Putin s problem brings us back to the second question that we posed a few minutes back.
10:26Why is the Donbass going to be such a tough nut for Putin to crack? Ukraine s stellar defence of
10:31the region, which is what has led to the enormous casualty figures that we now see, is part of the
10:36reason. However, another of Putin s major problems, and perhaps the reason why the last thing that he wants
10:41to do is to actually try to take the Donbass, is that the worst is yet to come for Russia
10:45in that region.
10:47Now that Russia finally seems to have taken Pokrovsk, its forces have to switch their focus to the
10:52fortress belt, along with the other dense urban areas that still remain under Ukraine s control.
10:57Among those urban areas are Liman and Dobropilya, which have the potential to turn into death traps
11:02on the same scale as Pokrovsk. But far more worrying for Putin is the line of large cities that run
11:07along the H-20 Konstantinivka-Slovyansk highway. Spanning about 31 miles, this line of cities
11:14includes Kramatorsk and Slovyansk to the north, along with Oleksievo-Drozkivka and Konstantinivka
11:22to the south. Combined, this collection of cities had a pre-war population of over 380,000,
11:28which is about 6.3 times more than the pre-war population of Krovsk, against which Putin almost
11:33destroyed his entire eastern force over the last two years. The point here is simple,
11:38Russia has a very long way to go before it can topple these cities and take the Donbas.
11:43And as if things couldn t get any worse for Putin and his greedy ambitions, there is a reason why
11:48this stretch of settlements is known as the Fortress Belt. As Russia s forces have spent over four years
11:53mired down in other regions of Donetsk, Ukraine has been building the Fortress Belt up into a networked
11:58defensive mechanism that will deliver death to Russia s forces at a scale that we ve yet to see during
12:03the war. The Economist highlighted this in a January article, where it claimed that Ukraine
12:08now has the type of Fortress Belt that it wished it had back in 2022, and it s all due
12:12to Russia taking
12:13so long to advance. There are now lines of defences stretching up to 200 meters or over 650 feet
12:19on the crest of the hill near the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk alone, the outlet says.
12:24This single line is filled with barbed and razor wire, anti-tank ditches, dragon's teeth,
12:28and excavated soil that serves as a defensive berm. There will also be drones on constant patrol,
12:35ready to destroy any Russian units that attempt to cross, and this is just a small part of a massive
12:40line of defences that spans the 31 mile length of the Fortress Belt, all of which Russia has to
12:45overcome before it even manages to get to the settlements themselves. Farrell adds that Ukraine
12:50has built massive kill zones between and behind these cities, meaning that there is simply no easy
12:55way for Russia to push through the Fortress Belt. Just like the line of defences discussed by The
13:00Economist, these kill zones are filled with defences against Russian infantry and mechanized units,
13:05along with the ever-present and buzzing drones that exist to spot Russian forces and destroy them.
13:10Putin knows that he can t expend an entire Ukraine s worth of the Russian army over the next 18
13:15months to
13:15two years just to take this belt. That sheer scale of death would be too massive even for him.
13:20The reality that Russia s leader is trying to hide is that he s terrified of what awaits his
13:24army in Donetsk, which is why he s now trying so hard to create a narrative about how Ukraine s
13:30fall
13:30and the loss of the Donbass are inevitable. Putin needs that narrative to hold up. The longer it does,
13:36the more time he has to try to manipulate the West into believing the garbage that comes out of his
13:40mouth, which in turn gives him leverage for peace talks. Putin will push for Ukraine to cede the Donbass
13:45because, as the Atlantic Council puts it, the Donetsk Fortress Belt is a major problem for Russia.
13:50As long as Kyiv continues to control the Donbass Fortress Belt, there is a good chance that the
13:55Ukrainian military can turn the entire region into a graveyard for Putin s invading army, the think
14:00tank says. Bloomberg adds that Russia is currently weighing up its peace talk options as Ukraine
14:05continues to refuse to cede the Donbass. The outlet claims that Russia has already created a draft
14:10memorandum for a peace accord that it will sign if Ukraine agrees to withdraw its forces from the region.
14:14This isn t a power play by Putin. It s Russian fear put on paper. And Ukraine knows it. On
14:21March 3rd,
14:22the new voice of Ukraine reported that Zelensky has no intention of abandoning the Donbass or the
14:26200,000 people who still live in the region. I want to be clear, I will never abandon Donbass and
14:31the 200,000 Ukrainians who live there. Why should I? Because Putin makes it a condition for peace.
14:36And he will immediately put forward new demands after that. No, I will not tolerate that. Zelensky
14:41roared in a statement that is the last thing that Putin wanted to hear. Ukraine can see through
14:45Putin s Donbass game. It knows that Putin is terrified of the prospect of sacrificing another
14:50800,000 soldiers at least to the fortress belt, along with up to two more years of fighting.
14:56Those two years alone are hardly something that the 73-year-old Putin can spare if he wants the
15:01taking of the Donbass to be the legacy that he leaves behind. Ukraine also realises that ceding the
15:06Donbass now just opens up the door for Russia to attack again in the future. In fact, Russian
15:11plans obtained by Ukraine already reveal that Putin has his eyes on much more than the one region he
15:16claims will bring peace to Ukraine if Zelensky cedes it. These plans, which detail Russia s strategy in
15:222027, reveal that Putin s forces intend to push deeper into Zaporizhia, attack Dnipro city, and perhaps
15:28even overrun Odessa. In other words, they re not the kinds of plans that Russia would be making if the
15:33Donbass were all that it wanted. Russia is preparing for a long-term campaign in the Donbass,
15:38not because it wants to fight that fight, because Ukraine is giving it no choice. There will be no
15:42seeding of territory. If Putin wants the Donbass, he s going to have to commit to losing up to two
15:47more years and the sacrifice of all the soldiers that Russia has in Ukraine, and maybe many more,
15:52to get it. Does Putin have the appetite for that battle? If he has learned any lessons from the
15:57horror show that Russia endured in Pokrovsk, he shouldn t. Pokrovsk was a microcosm of what awaits
16:03Russia s forces in the fortress belt, and the city will go down in Ukrainian and Russian legend as
16:07one of the most bloodthirsty in all of the war. Pokrovsk curse has already torn through Russia s
16:12army, and you can find out all about it if you watch our video. And if you enjoyed this video,
16:16make sure you hit subscribe to see more analysis of the brutal failings of the Russian military.
16:21And thanks for watching.
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