As soldiers face endless Russian pressure, the prospect of dying to defend land that could be given away at the peace table is damaging morale
The explosion reverberated through the city streets as another drone hit, drowning out staccato bursts of anti-aircraft fire. The Ukrainian troops defending Kramatorsk barely batted an eyelid.
The largest Ukrainian-held city in the Donbas, Kramatorsk is at the heart of the country’s “fortress belt” — probably its strongest defensive line. A series of heavy fortifications run 30 miles down the H20 highway and around four large cities, Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostyantynivka, as well as several smaller towns.
For 11 years, President Putin has tried and failed to take these cities by force. First through hybrid warfare in 2014, then the full-scale invasion of 2022. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based military think tank, estimates it would still take Russian troops another “several years” to do so. Yet now President Trump wants to hand it to him as part of a US-brokered peace deal that would force Ukraine to surrender all its unoccupied territory in the Donbas.
