Ukraine-Russia. Peace for land? They don't even want to hear about it

• Weekly Friday series “Interia Closer to the World” these are the most interesting articles from the most important foreign newspapers
• The slogan “peace for land” does not appeal to most Ukrainians
• Given the potential change of administration in the White House, the authorities in Kiev may have no choice
• The Washington Post checked how the residents of Donbas and the military react to the slogan of returning the lands to Russia.

As Russian forces advance through Donbasthe pressure on Kyiv to sit down at the negotiating table with Russia and started talking about peace for land.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is to present a “victory plan” to allies next week. The US president will first hear it Joe Biden together with the candidates for this office: Kamala Harris i Donald Trumpem. According to Zelensky, the plan will help end the war to the benefit of Kiev, but the timing of its announcement is tied to the final weeks of the US election campaign, which may have implications for the US leadership in the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine.

Just a few days ago, the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States JD Vance presented Donald Trump's plan to end the war. It assumes Ukraine's ceding of part of its territory to Russia.

Any kind of “peace for land” agreement would likely seal the fate of Donbas, which has been embroiled in fighting since 2014. Polls show, however, that Ukrainians are not ready to give up their land. This opposition is especially evident among those who have fought in the region over the past 10 years.

– There would be a coup. The idea would be promoted by those who are safe in the cities… Here, no one would support something like that. This land is now soaked in our blood – says Weronika, a 23-year-old medic. As a teenager, she fled with her family from Donetsk do Slavicwhen it was occupied by Russian-backed separatists in 2014.

A public opinion poll conducted in May by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed that one third of Ukrainians are now ready to make territorial concessions to Russiaif it would bring a quick end to the war and preserve independence. However, more than half of respondents still reject the idea of ​​giving up even a piece of land for the price of peace.

Earlier research conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank Washington showed that almost half of Ukrainians were ready to support negotiations with Russia, but this number dropped sharply if territorial concessions were on the table. Almost two-thirds, for example, rejected a deal that would freeze the “current front lines,” and 86 percent of respondents doubted the statement that The Kremlin will not decide to launch another attack even after signing the treaty.

And while only 7 percent of respondents said they would join an armed protest if territorial concessions were made, that percentage is twice as high if active military personnel and veterans are included—including those who fought in the Donbas for the past decade. They have seen Russian forces raze captured Ukrainian cities to the ground with their own eyes and now can’t imagine losing any territory to the enemy.

Zelensky claims that this will not happen and has repeatedly spoken about his plan – without revealing any details. All that is known is that offensive in Kursk region This is the first, already implemented, direction. The implementation of all several points is to force the Kremlin to end the conflict.

The 34-year-old Pasha, a former miner from Pokrovsk, is against the cession of territory to Russia. He currently serves as a drone operator. In his opinion, the loss of Donbas would be a “cataclysm”. The man points out that there is no guarantee that the war will end after the “peace for land” agreement. – Russia is a country with imperialist ambitions. They will not stop – draws attention.

Many Ukrainian military officials say that negotiations with Moscow never produce good results. Previous – Minsk agreements on the 2014-2015 ceasefire – Vladimir Putin broke up two days before the invasion in 2022. The residents of Donbas, loyal to Ukraine, believe that any A compromise in exchange for giving up lands would give Moscow time to rebuild its military potential before another invasion.

The 38-year-old thinks similarly. Natalia Bredowa from Sloviansk. The woman knows the costs of war all too well. Her 20-year-old son, Volodymyr, was killed in combat in Avdiivtsi in March. Her husband also serves in the army.

“Too many people have died – it's too late to talk about negotiations. They are the light of our nation. We have to keep fighting,” she says, adding that she would never live under Russian occupation, even if she was “offered a lot of gold.”

But for many Ukrainians in Donbas – a major coal basin that was once the jewel in the crown of Soviet industry – the threat of Russian occupation has been a fact of life for years. Vitaliy Barabash is the head of the military administration of Avdiivka. He has been fighting with Russia since 2014. Avdiivka was finally captured by Russia in the winter after almost a decade of fighting.

We meet Barabash in a dingy office in Pokrovsk. He was working on his tasks, which include helping residents apply for compensation for lost homes and coordinating a center for refugees from Avdiivka in Dnipro.

The flags of Donbas and Avdiivka adorn one wall of the room. The other features a jagged red flame on a green background. It symbolizes the flame that once burned over the city's massive steel factory. “I've been in the army since 2014, so I know what it's like to lose territory. It was like losing a limb,” he says.

After the Russians took over the city, Barabash needed to cut himself off from everything for a few days. “I had to be alone… Even my relatives knew they shouldn't talk to me. I was in a really bad mental state,” he admits. To cope with stress, he likes to go to the shooting range or ride a motorcycle along the Dnieper.

The man does not believe that Zelensky would sign a peace agreement that would “give” Donbas to Russia. In his opinion, talks with Moscow would already be a “stupid move”. – Most people hope that we will return to Avdiivka. People are ready to live in tents in order to rebuild this city in the future – he emphasizes.

Vladimir Putin has long argued that one of his justifications for the war in Ukraine was to protect the Russian-speaking population of eastern Ukraine from what he falsely portrayed as a threat of genocide. Russian soldiers interviewed by The Washington Post in Russia cited this as a key reason they believed the war must continue.

Indeed, pro-Russian sentiment and nostalgia for the Soviet past have historically been much higher in the east than in other parts of Ukraine. However There are many Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Donbas who want it to remain Ukrainian – especially since the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Since the conflict began in 2014, thousands of people have lost their lives and homes have been destroyed, all in the name of the Kremlin’s policy of “defending Russian-speaking residents.” As Russian troops moved west, Donbas residents were forced to leave their homes, full of memories, and watch their towns and villages being bombed.

Others, after months or years of living as refugees, have missed their homes, the memories of endless sunflower fields, the distinctive slag heaps on the horizon. They have returned and learned to live a few kilometers from the front lines under the constant threat of Russian missile attacks. Now many of them are packing their bags again. They are ready to leave if Russian troops approach.

– With a full-scale war the masks fell. Everything became clear and distinct, says the 35-year-old Yegor Firsov. This lawyer by profession represented Donetsk in the Ukrainian parliament before the invasion and currently serves as a medic in the town Her–York on the front line.

We talked with Firsov in the summer Pokrovsko. The man remembers Donetsk before the occupation as a wealthy, cosmopolitan place: a city that once witnessed a performance Beyoncé at the Donbas Arena and hosted participants in the 2012 European Football Championship, when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in national colors cheered on their players. But, he says now, Donetsk has become a “dangerous, harsh, often wild” place.

People increasingly felt that Kiev was ignoring the region and their grievances. As local oligarchs gained more power, the city's political pluralism waned, and Donetsk gradually became more sympathetic to Moscow.

– Donetsk is big money, enterprises and factories left over from the Soviet Union – Firsov points out. – In order to maintain power, the then elite followed a specific path… and the residents of Donbas at that time supported the course – he analyzes.

Firsov is well acquainted with the effects of Russian propaganda, having led the pro-European protests in the city in 2014. For a decade, Russian state television had been telling Donbas residents that Kiev was bombing their homes, and that the then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko is to blame for the conflict.

But when the invasion began, our interlocutor says, thousands of people joined the service in the Territorial Defense Brigade of the Donetsk region. – It was clear that the enemy was Russia, it was the aggressor, it was destroying us and our homes. – he emphasizes.

If some Ukrainians once believed that Donbas was a separate part of the country that could be gotten rid of, the outbreak of a full-scale war seems to have changed that perspective once and for all, even in the West.

In 2014, some Donbas refugees felt marginalized in other parts of the country. They were treated as if they were a source of instability in Ukraine and brought only trouble. Now, as the loss of home and refugee life have become a common experience for many, Donbas residents say they can count on greater empathy. Many of them are increasingly speaking Ukrainian.

– In 2014, it was the war in Donbas, now it is the war in Ukraine – emphasizes Firsov. – If there was a discussion before whether we need Donbas, whether we can give it back, now it has been cut off. All these are our territories – we demand the return of all of them – he adds.

In turn, soldiers from other parts of the country who had never been to eastern Ukraine before have resettled in the region. Some got married and started families. We met some of them, among others, in Słowiańsk. On the shore of Lake Mykola i Artemtwo military men from northern Ukraine, were enjoying an hour of respite in the summer, waiting for orders from their commander.

They had arrived in Donbas a month earlier – for the first time in their lives. “Coming here is full of emotions, given its history,” Artem admits. “But you can’t cut a country like a piece of cake.” It is very much a part of Ukraine: the same nature, the same trees, the same sun… – he adds.

Article translated from “The Washington Post”. Authors: Francesca Ebel, Serhiy Korolchuk

Translation: Mateusz Kucharczyk

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