For Russia, Donetsk region is just gateway

From AP:

"Ukraine’s Donetsk region seen as Russia’s gateway, not the ultimate prize in war

By  HANNA ARHIROVA, October 7, 2025

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — From a bunker in eastern Ukraine, the 33-year-old soldier asks her comrade to fly a reconnaissance drone over her childhood home, hoping for a final glimpse before it becomes just another city pulverized by years of fighting.

The soldier took up arms a decade ago to defend her home region, Donetsk, where Ukraine has been battling Russian-backed forces since 2014. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the region has become synonymous with Ukraine’s fight for survival. Battlefield developments in Donetsk are considered a gauge of each side’s fortunes in the war.

In over 10 years of fighting, Ukraine has lost control of around 70% of the region.

“I watched my school destroyed, the community center where I once took dance lessons reduced to rubble,” Fox said in the dugout close to her beloved Kostiantynivka, where Russian forces are steadily closing in.

“It hurts because your whole life flashes before your eyes — the days when I was a little girl, the places and moments that were dear to me,” said Fox who, along with other soldiers who spoke to The Associated Press, provided only her call sign per Ukrainian military protocol...

Like so many in Ukraine, it’s not the first time Fox has lost a home to the war. In 2022, Russian forces captured Mariupol, the southern Donetsk city where she has also lived. This year, she has watched the front line creep toward the city where she was born...

Russia already controls most of Donbas — its name for Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk — that along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Kyiv to cede control of the rest, which analysts believe would give Moscow a permanent launchpad from which to threaten other parts of Ukraine. With the stakes so high, Ukraine is determined to resist at all costs and defend every inch it still holds...

After years of fighting for control of the region, Ukrainians fear its fall would not only render meaningless the thousands of lives lost but also condemn the country to instability. And few on the front line believe Russia’s ambitions would end in Donetsk..."