Kenneth Glad
Diplomats are quietly examining whether a heavily monitored buffer zone could halt the fighting in eastern Ukraine without resolving the underlying territorial dispute.
Ukraine’s leadership has drawn a clear line in ongoing peace discussions: no territorial concessions without firm security guarantees.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has argued, writes the New York Times, that protections must come before any political steps. “I would very much like us to sign security guarantees first and then sign other documents,” he said, adding that Ukrainians must “know — not just believe, but know — that in the future Russian aggression will be impossible or that if it does happen, we will not be alone.”
That insistence frames a broader debate now underway over the possible creation of a demilitarized zone in the Donetsk region, an industrial swath of eastern Ukraine scarred by trench systems and artillery fire after years of combat.
Territorial mechanics
In the same article The New York Times detailed discussions among Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. officials over a buffer zone in a strip of Donetsk roughly 50 miles long and 40 miles wide, lying between the current frontline and the region’s administrative border. Moscow has demanded that Kyiv relinquish the territory it still controls there as a condition for ending the war. Ukraine has refused.
Rather than a unilateral withdrawal, negotiators have explored whether the area could be turned into a demilitarized strip controlled by neither army. Elements of that concept echo a 28-point peace framework floated in the Financial Times in November, report Romanian outlet Digi24.
The plan combined territorial adjustments with security guarantees and phased sanctions relief, prompting cautious reactions in several European capitals.
During talks in Abu Dhabi earlier this month, Ukrainian officials examined options for a partial Russian pullback that would not necessarily be mirrored step-for-step by Ukrainian forces, people familiar with the discussions told the NYT. The shift was subtle, but it suggested room for maneuver around how a buffer might physically take shape.
Security architecture
How such a zone would be enforced remains contentious.
President Vladimir V. Putin said last fall that the details of a demilitarized arrangement required further discussion. His foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, later indicated that Moscow could accept a buffer if Russian police or National Guard units were allowed to patrol it.
Kyiv rejects that formula and has called for an international peacekeeping presence instead. Some NATO diplomats, speaking publicly in recent months, have stressed that any buffer would require credible monitoring and rapid-response mechanisms to prevent violations — lessons drawn from the collapse of earlier cease-fire arrangements.
The Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 established separation lines in eastern Ukraine but failed to deter renewed escalation. That experience looms over current discussions.
Governance design
Administration of the territory is another unresolved layer. The NYT said negotiators have discussed forming a civilian authority that could include both Russian and Ukrainian representatives, though no agreement is near.
The area is home to about 190,000 civilians, including 12,000 children, according to the region’s Ukrainian governor — figures cited by Digi24. Kyiv argues that any arrangement must prioritize their protection.
There has also been discussion of creating a free-trade zone inside the demilitarized strip. Yet much of the region’s heavy industry has been destroyed, with only one coal mine still operating, limiting the economic upside.
Taken together, the proposals reflect less a breakthrough than a search for formulas that could freeze the conflict without resolving it. Whether such a structure would stabilize the front or simply institutionalize a divided Donbas remains uncertain — and that uncertainty, as much as any map, may shape the choices ahead.
Sources: The New York Times, Financial Times, Digi24
