The declared goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin is to liberate and “denazify” the Ukrainian Donbass region and to protect the Russianspeaking population. Less declared are the inevitably strong economic interests given how strategic the resources at the Donbass’ disposal are. It is an area of eastern Ukraine divided into the areas of Donetskthe capital, del Dnepropetrovsk he was born in Lugansk. The latter’s governor has confirmed that the final attack in Donbass is now imminent, believing that the Russian president’s real priority is to take control of the region’s abundant natural resources. In fact, Donbass is one of the richest regions of Ukraine in terms of coal, gas and oil reserves. Fossil fuels are at the center of Russian interest, only in Donbass do they exist 100 billion tons Money, 135 million tons of oil e 1.1 trillioni cubic meters of natural gas reserves. But not only. It has huge reserves metals and rare earths, indispensable for the tech industry as they are used in technical devices such as mobile phones, cameras and computers, but also in fighter jets. These are reserves that the country has not yet exhausted, but will play a central role in the economy of the future. China currently holds most of these reserves, followed by the United States. Mineral deposits in Ukraine are profitable $7.5 trillion through the mining of active deposits. 8,000 have already been tested and about half are being extracted. But Ukraine potentially has 20,000 deposits. That 42 percent of the state’s GDP comes only from natural resources. The conquest of the Donbass would play a central economic role for Putin because it would also burden Europe. That’s another reason why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not want to give up the region.
