Why Putin could agree to withdraw from Ukraine in exchange for Donbass alone? Meanwhile, it must be clarified that by Donbass we mean the whole area of eastern Ukraine, not only the territories of the two breakaway republics recognized before the invasion, i.e Donetsk and Lugansk, but also Dnipropetrovsk, thus completing the Russophone buffer zone. More or minus five million people, the majority of which, it has been noted, live in extreme poverty.
There's a lot of talk about it these days. And the analysts are divided: those wondering if it's not a small thing (Russia would like all of Ukraine); who if it is not useless, because it is the same aborted solution foreseen after the war of 2014 (see Minsk Protocol); who but soon to stop the weapons (Putin and Zelensky want to earn more from the battlefield).
Donbass and coal
All legitimate considerations, but none of them take account of what the Donbass was for the history of Russia. And what could still be. The example used by scholars is the one that clarifies best: Donbass was for the Soviet Union what the Ruhr was for Germany, the center of the industrial revolution. And even today that extraction has decreased by over a third due to the conflict, which, as we know, has lasted in the area for eight years, Donbass remains one of the most important mining regions in the world. It would be entirely plausible then if the area remained for Putin the terrain of exchange, provided that Zelensky accepted it.
Let's see the numbers. Today from the basin of the Donetsk River, after which the region is named, they are mined every year 10 million tons of coal: they were over 64 million before 2013, a figure that placed Ukraine among the top ten mineral-producing countries in the world. Even so reduced, it is a good amount, ready to grow as soon as the normal rhythm of extractions returns. Which above all means, of course, to stop the war.
For those who get the idea that coal is an energy source of the past, we recall that, according to the latest report of the World Energy Council, reported by Susan Harmon, on the site Ripley believes, "coal remains the key to the world's energy structure”, representing “about 40% of world electricity production”. So much so that experts believe it will soon replace oil and become the largest source of primary energy. Coal reserves are estimated at 869 billion tons based on the current production rate. “This means – concludes Harmon – that coal should last about 115 years longer than conventional oil and gas reserves.
Not good news for the planet, but that's another story. And in any case it shouldn't be Putin's concerns, who wants those mines exactly as he wanted (and took) Crimea. At the basis of his claims is the usual reasoning: the Donbass (sorry, the coal) has always been ours, since there was only one country; so, i want it back.
Historical relations between Russia and Ukraine
At this point, it is worth putting some order into this story of the single country, which is partly true and partly not, like all those that are told about relations between Ukrainians and Russians, which have never like a long quiet river, as the legends about the unity of the Slavic brothers would have it. For example, just as large and rich coal deposits were being discovered in 1721, Kiev was fighting to resist one of the embraces of its powerful neighbor, then called Peter the Great, Putin's idol. He went the way he went, i.e. badly for the Ukrainians. And the relationship continued like this between the two "brothers", fluctuating over the years between a peace and a war, until the last bell, the one that rang thirty years ago, when the USSR flag was lowered and Ukraine embarked on a different political path from that of Russia. As, in truth, the other Republics of the former USSR also tried to do.
Russia's sphere of influence
In this regard, it is interesting to dwell on another legend, the one that Putin loves most of all. The one according to which the Russia, after the implosion of the communist empire, has remained without areas of influence, and therefore exposed to Western pressure, be it NATO or the EU. Of the 15 republics that were part of the USSR, including Russia and except the three Baltics – Lithuania, Latvia ed Estonia, who, thanks also to their history, quickly moved away from Moscow, immediately entering Europe – for all the others, to this day it continues to be difficult to get out of that history. Some are still completely subservient to Russian power (Belarus); others have to be careful how they go about choosing friends and enemies (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova); still others, such as the Asian Republics (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan) have traded a certain amount of internal freedom for total economic and strategic submission; while against the most rebellious, Ukraine e Georgia, tanks have been and are being used to prevent them from choosing their own way of life. What are these called if not spheres of influence?
Russia and NATO
In short, it is true that, as Putin has been claiming for years, and as many Western analysts have generously conceded, NATO has come dangerously close to Russia's borders, given that all the countries that were part of the Warsaw Pact, except Russia, are now members of the opposing military alliance; but two other considerations are equally true. The first concerns borders: out of 20 kilometers of borders, Russia shares 1.215 with a member of the Alliance. The other consideration is that the NATO that Putin imagines no longer exists: in 1989, when the Soviet world was beginning to creak, the Alliance deployed over 300 soldiers in Europe; just over 60 were counted last year. A little too little to talk about encirclement.
Finally, returning to the Donbass, perhaps the deepest cause of Russia's war on Ukraine lies precisely in the loss of those mines. After all, conflicts in human history have always been open and conducted for economic reasons cloaked in ideological superstructures. It is probable that more than the Russian citizens mistreated by the "Nazi" Ukrainian rulers (or the phantom encirclement of NATO) it must have been the lost coal that outraged Putin. And maybe that very coal could now help end the conflict. Provided that Zelensky, as we have mentioned, agrees to deprive himself of them, because even for Ukraine those mines have enormous economic value, in addition to the fact that they are no longer Russian, whatever Putin thinks. But all of this could be part of the peace negotiations: a solution can always be found if the weapons are to be silenced. For now the problem is only this.
