Russia has launched its full-scale offensive to take control of Ukraine’s east, president Volodymyr Zelensky has announced. In a video address on Monday, (April 18), said Russian troops had launched an effort to break through Ukrainian front lines in three Eastern regions.
“Now we can already state that the Russian troops have begun the battle for the Donbas, for which they have been preparing for a long time,” said the Ukrainian President. He added a 'significant part of the entire Russian army is now concentrated on this offensive'.
The Donbas is Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland in the east, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for the past eight years and have declared two independent republics that have been recognised by Russia. But in recent weeks, the Kremlin said the capture of the Donbas was its main goal of the war after its attempt to storm Kyiv failed.
