Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia appears to have launched its long-anticipated large-scale offensive in the eastern Donbas region, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported Monday. “It can now be stated that the Russian troops have begun the battle for Donbas, for which they have been preparing for a long time,” Zelenskyy said. “A very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive.”
Zelenskyy said in a video address that Russian generals have lost too many of their troops and are acting more carefully during this new offensive.
"The occupiers’ attacks in the east and south of our country have become more considered than they have been before,” he said. “They are putting pressure on us, looking for a weak spot in our country’s defense in order to then attack it with their main forces. […]
“Maybe the Russian generals who are used to not counting their losses have now lost the lives of so many of their soldiers that even they have to be more careful, or they will be left with no one to conduct an offensive.
Still, they should not expect that this will help them. When the entire territory of our country is going to be liberated is only a matter of time."
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defense council, said Russia attacked along nearly the entire front line in Donbas and Kharkiv, breaking through in two small cities, The Washington Post reported. “Fortunately, our military is holding on,” Danilov said. He said the Russian ground assault stretched 300 miles from the northern Kharkiv region south to the besieged port of Mariupol.
The Pentagon did not contradict the Ukrainian assessment but took a more cautious approach, with spokesman John Kirby saying the Russians “are shaping and setting the conditions for future offensive operations,” the Post reported.
Russia has spent weeks gathering troops and supplies in preparation for a major offensive in the eastern Donbas region. The Kremlin said the Donbas would be the primary focus of its invasion after its troops failed to capture the Ukraine capital Kyiv in the initial phase.
In his video address, Zelenskyy added: “We will continue fighting however many Russian troops are deployed there. We will continue defending ourselves. We will do this every day. We will not relinquish anything that is Ukrainian, but we don’t need anything that’s not ours.
“And I am grateful to all our soldiers, to all our heroic cities in Donbas, to Mariupol, and to the cities of the Kharkiv region that are still holding on. That are still guarding the fate of the entire country by holding back the invaders. Rubizhne, Popasna, Zolote, Lysychansk, Sievierodonetsk, Kramatorsk and all others that have been with Ukraine for all these years, and will forever be with Ukraine."
Zelenskyy’s video address followed one of the most intense missile barrages in weeks, including the first lethal strike on the western city of Lviv, where seven people were killed. Lviv is a city of refuge for tens of thousands of civilians who have fled from cities further east.
The New York Times reported:
The Lviv attack followed 300 missile and artillery strikes that Russia claimed to have carried out, mainly in the east, in what appeared to be a campaign to terrorize the population and intimidate Ukraine’s military before the new ground offensive had begun in the part of the country known as the Donbas.
