- January 31, 2026
- 2:16 pm
- Ukraine
At the end of January 2026, a thesis resurfaced in the Ukrainian information field, which Moscow regularly brings to the negotiating tables: “withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of Donbas”. At first glance, this sounds like another ultimatum, but in an analytical column by military observer Alexander Kovalenko, the emphasis is placed on something else: the danger is not only in the demand itself, but in the words with which it is framed.
The author ties the topic to the negotiation track in Abu Dhabi and calls such a formulation of the question “topographically veiled.” He writes directly: this demand is “not only absurd but also… dangerous.”
“Donbas” is not always what it seems
In Ukrainian and international media habits, “Donbas” often sounds like a synonym for two regions — Donetsk and Luhansk. But historically, the term is broader: it comes from the “Donetsk coal basin,” and different reference books describe its boundaries differently — from an “industrial area” to interpretations through the coal basin and adjacent territories.
This is where the main risk that Kovalenko warns about is built: if the parties ever sign a document with a vague term, the game of expanding the meaning begins — and the dispute is no longer about the map, but about “what was meant.”
The author has a short, very harsh formulation: “The territorial topic in such a context is taboo.”
And this is an important part of the text’s logic: even before military mathematics, he fixes a “red line” — moral, constitutional, and international legal.
Donetsk region: the numbers the author operates with
Then the facts begin — and they are needed to understand why the material quickly moves from the words “Donbas” to the specific geography of the Donetsk region.
Kovalenko claims that Ukraine controls about 5,500 km² in the Donetsk region.
He also provides an estimate that throughout 2025 the Russian army captured 4,329 km² of Ukrainian territory, while, according to him, losses amounted to 418,010 (in the text, “losses” refer to the total losses of personnel in the author’s interpretation).
Separately, he estimates that in the Donetsk region about 2,200 km² could have been captured in 2025 (with a caveat about the difficulty of accurate assessment).
Important: this is not an official report from the General Staff and not unified international statistics, but estimates from the author’s column. But in the logic of the text, they serve one purpose — to show that the demand to “withdraw troops” means obtaining a huge territorial result without an assault.
Sloviansk–Kramatorsk: why this node is called a “bridgehead”
The key concept of the article is the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk bridgehead (SKB). The author describes it as the most fortified part of the Donetsk region, formed since 2014.
The point here is not in a beautiful term, but in a practical conclusion: if Sloviansk and Kramatorsk “open” without a fight, the configuration of the front changes and a window for deeper enemy advancement appears.
And here the author has one of the sharpest formulations: he writes that compared to the SKB “Bakhmut… is child’s play,” “Avdiivka will seem like a walk in the park.”
This is a journalistic device, but it reflects the idea: it’s about an area that has been “stitched” with fortifications for years.
NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency monitors such signals precisely because the formulations about “troop withdrawal” are not only a Ukrainian internal discussion: they quickly enter international negotiation packages, and therefore, tomorrow they will become a subject of pressure on Kyiv from various capitals.
The military logic of the demand: “not to storm, but to take”
Kovalenko emphasizes: he discusses not only morality and law but also military expediency.
If translated into simple language, the thesis is this:
Ukraine is offered to leave the most fortified area.
Russia receives a key node without battles, losses, and time.
Then the geometry of the front line changes and new directions of pressure open up.
To illustrate the complexity of the battles, the author provides two more figures: in his estimation, on the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad direction a 170,000-strong group is involved, and in total in the battles in the Donetsk region — more than 300,000.
And again: this is the author’s estimate, but it is built into the argument why the “negotiation formula” can become a bypass way not to “break” the SKB by military force.
Why “terminological discipline” suddenly becomes a security issue
One of the most practical parts of the text is the demand to speak more precisely. The author essentially proposes an informational task: to explain to partners the difference between “Donbas” and “Donetsk region” so as not to leave room for manipulation.
This is not an abstraction. In different sources, several frameworks of understanding “Donbas” indeed coexist: modern political, industrial, and geographical.
If a diplomatic document does not fix which framework the parties use, there remains room for subsequent interpretations.
What this means for Israel and the region
On the Israeli agenda, the war in Ukraine has long been read more broadly than a “European conflict”: Iran, drones, missile technologies, sanctions, sea routes, as well as diplomatic practices of pressure and bargaining are constantly “mixed” in.
Therefore, “verbal traps” in negotiations are not theoretical. If one side achieves the legalization of vague formulations, this is then applied in other parts of the world: first as a precedent, then as a tool.
And another point: platforms like the UAE (if the negotiation process indeed shifts there) create additional context — regional mediators, “package” exchanges, external interests. In such a format, the precision of terms becomes not pedantry, but insurance.
Our opinion (NANews editorial)
We would formulate it this way: the issue of “troop withdrawal” is not just pressure on the front, but pressure on language.
When negotiations begin to rely on terms that can be stretched like rubber, it almost always ends with the weaker side having to endlessly prove “what was meant.” And each subsequent round begins not with peace, but with new clarifications — already under threat.
In this logic, not only Sloviansk and Kramatorsk as a fortified node are important, but also a lesson for everyone observing the war from the sidelines: if today a document enshrines “Donbas” without definition, tomorrow any other vague term can be enshrined in the same way — and presented as a legal reality.
For Israel, which lives in a world where the formulations of resolutions, statements, and “red lines” often decide no less than air defense batteries, this lesson is especially understandable: in major conflicts, sometimes the map is first broken with words — and only then with equipment.
