The Donetsk region, long coveted by Moscow, is now at the center of some of the fiercest fighting in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin has reportedly said he would agree to freeze the war if Russia is granted complete control of the territory.
Russia already holds about 70 percent of Donetsk and nearly all of neighboring Luhansk. Its forces are making slow but steady advances, pressing Ukraine’s so-called “fortress belt,” a network of heavily fortified towns and defenses.
Evacuation under fire
Reporting from the front-line town of Dobropillia, just eight kilometers from Russian positions, BBC correspondent Quentin Sommerville joined humanitarian volunteers evacuating the sick, elderly and children.
At first, the operation runs smoothly. The convoy speeds into town in an armored car equipped with drone-jamming technology. The road is draped in green netting to shield it from Russian drones. But the streets are deserted, buildings lie in ruins, and Dobropillia has been without water for a week.
In recent days, Russian troops briefly breached defenses near the town, raising fears the entire front could collapse. Although Ukraine rushed in reinforcements and insists the situation is stable, most residents are now desperate to leave.
Vitalii Kalinichenko, 56, waits with a plastic bag of belongings. “My windows were all smashed, look, they all flew out on the second floor. I’m the only one left,” he says, pointing to damage from a drone strike that injured his leg.
As volunteers help him, drones buzz overhead. Explosions echo across apartment blocks, underscoring the peril facing those who remain.
The human toll
Inside the evacuation vehicle, Anton, 31, leaves behind his mother in tears. “We need to sit at the negotiation table and after all resolve this conflict in a peaceful way. Without blood, without victims,” he says.
But 19-year-old volunteer Varia offers a starkly different view: “We can never trust Putin or Russia. If we give them Donbas, it won’t stop anything but only give Russia more room for another attack.”
The fate of Donbas — Donetsk and Luhansk — remains uncertain. President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed claims Ukraine could lose the region by year’s end, saying Russia would need years to fully occupy it. Yet without new Western weaponry, analysts warn Ukraine may struggle to hold its ground.
Hospitals at breaking point
At a National Guard field hospital run by the 14th Operational Brigade, medics work through the night, stabilizing soldiers wounded near Pokrovsk — a city partially encircled after a year of fighting.
“We want back our territory, our people and we have to punish Russia for what they did,” says Senior Lieutenant Dima, a surgeon exhausted after treating waves of soldiers hit by drones and artillery. Casualties now number in the dozens daily, some of the worst since the war began.
The cost of defending Donetsk is measured in blood and shattered bodies. Though Russian casualties are estimated to be far higher, Moscow’s greater capacity to absorb losses keeps pressure on Ukraine.
The stakes in Donetsk
Along roads flanked by cornfields and sunflowers, new fortifications rise: barbed wire, trenches, anti-tank “dragon’s teeth.” Ukraine fears another breach, with intelligence estimating Russia has more than 100,000 troops poised for fresh assaults.
Whether Donetsk is lost on the battlefield or at the negotiating table, the outcome will shape the wider war. If the fortress belt falls, neighboring regions like Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia could be next. For now, Ukraine — battered, exhausted, but defiant — is fighting for every inch.
