Donbass

Background

The Donbas, also written Donbass, is a historical, cultural, and economic region on the Russia–Ukraine border, lying predominantly in eastern Ukraine. In modern usage it usually refers to Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast, though its boundaries have varied in different historical and scholarly definitions. The name comes from “Donets Basin,” a reference to the Donets River and the Donets Ridge, and it is associated with the coal mining belt that made the area one of the main industrial regions of the former Russian Empire and later Ukraine.

The region matters in Russian, Ukrainian, and broader international affairs because it combines dense population centers, heavy industry, and major transport routes with a mixed ethnic composition. At the 2001 census in the Ukrainian part of the Donbas, about 58 percent of the population identified as ethnic Ukrainian and 38 percent as ethnic Russian. Donetsk has long been regarded as the region’s unofficial capital, and other major cities have included Luhansk, Mariupol, Makiivka, Horlivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Alchevsk, Sievierodonetsk, and Lysychansk. The area’s industrial base, especially coal mining and related metallurgy, has given it enduring economic and political importance.

Historically, the Donbas formed part of the frontier between the Zaporozhian Sich and the Don Cossack Host, and it became heavily industrialized in the late 19th century. After the 2014 Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity, large parts of the region experienced pro-Russian unrest that developed into armed conflict between Ukrainian forces and separatists backed by Russia. The fighting left the Donbas divided for years between Ukrainian-held and separatist-held areas, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 expanded the conflict further. In September 2022, Russia unilaterally declared the annexation of the Donbas together with Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, and by October 2025 Russian forces were reported to control about 90 percent of the region.

Timeline

1. Mar 11, 2026

   64 residents of Sverdlovsk in Donbass’s Luhansk region were resettled from dilapidated housing into a new building under the new “Infrastructure for Life” national project.

   Marat Khusnullin: First Residents of the Reunified Regions Relocated from Dilapidated Housing to a New Building
2. Mar 10, 2026

   Ukrainian forces were reported to control only 15–17% of the Donetsk People's Republic territory, down from 25% six months earlier.

   Meeting with Head of the Donetsk People's Republic Denis Pushilin
3. Mar 10, 2026

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   Meeting with Head of the Donetsk People's Republic Denis Pushilin