Ukraine is ready for ‘hard battle’ with Russia in eastern regions: Zelenskyy
Global News
The Ukrainian military says Moscow is preparing for a thrust to try to gain full control of the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Ukraine is ready for a tough battle with Russian forces amassing in the east of the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday, a day after a missile attack in the east that officials said killed more than 50 civilians trying to evacuate.
Air-raid sirens sounded in cities across eastern Ukraine, which has become the focus of Russian military action following a withdrawal from areas close to the capital, Kyiv.
After Friday’s strike on a train station crowded with women, children and the elderly in the Donetsk region city of Kramatorsk, officials urged civilians in the neighboring Luhansk region to flee. Read full story
“Yes, (Russian) forces are gathering in the east (of Ukraine),” Zelenskyy told a joint news conference with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in Kyiv.
“This will be a hard battle, we believe in this fight and our victory. We are ready to simultaneously fight and look for diplomatic ways to put an end to this war,” Zelenskyy added.
Russia’s invasion, which began on Feb. 24, has forced more than 4 million people to flee abroad, killed or injured thousands, left a quarter of the population homeless, and turned cities into rubble.
The civilian casualties have triggered a wave of international condemnation, in particular over the deaths in the town of Bucha, a town to the northwest of Kyiv that until last week was occupied by Russian forces.
Russia has denied targetting civilians in what it calls a “special operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” its southern neighbor. Ukraine and Western nations have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for war.
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