KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces were deterring Russia’s intensified offensive in the east, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday, even as he labeled the grinding military panorama across the country as “very hard.”
The situation in the heavily contested eastern Donbas region “is extremely difficult,” Zelenskyy said in his overnight address, noting that Russian forces continue to mass against the eastern Ukrainian cities of Severodonetsk and Slovyansk, strategic points that serve as the base for the Ukrainian defense of the Donbas.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are deterring this offensive,” the president said. “Every day that our defenders take away from these offensive plans of Russia, disrupting them, is a concrete contribution.”
