Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

What started as a secret military operation has exploded into a full-scale war, with the Kremlin currently occupying roughly 17,980 square miles

Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

At a recent meeting with his US counterpart, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again suggested that full control of Donbas was a central criterion for ending the war in Ukraine. Why is the region so important to him?

Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

Inasmuch as Russia has occupied most of the industrial basin known as the Donbas since its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 — and is highly unlikely to be driven from that territory anytime soon — Russia has already lost the war, regardless of how long it continues and whether or not a U.S.-brokered ceasefire or peace becomes a reality.

Three and a half years after Putin's February 2022 invasion, the Russia-Ukraine War is a humanitarian catastrophe and a financial sinkhole. It has often seemed to be an intractable quagmire; the permanent foreign policy class has no idea how to even begin to end it.

NATO allies and Ukraine are working together to make sure security guarantees for Ukraine are at such a robust level that Russia will never try to attack again, NATO chief Mark Rutte said on Friday, adding that Europe and the United States would be involved in providing them.