Ukraine war: Zelensky says Donbas ‘destroyed’ and is now ‘hell’; Russian strikes kill 13 civilians
- Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday that Moscow was nearing full control of the separatist region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine
- British military intelligence said on Friday that Russia is likely to further reinforce its operations in Donbas once it finally secures the southern port city of Mariupol
Russian forces have bombarded areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas from land and air, killing at least 13 civilians, Ukraine’s military said on Friday, and President Volodymyr Zelensky said the assaults had turned the region into “hell”.
As the war neared the three-month mark, the Russians were intensifying their efforts to subdue the Donbas region, the Ukrainian general staff said.
They had hit civilian infrastructure with “massive” artillery shelling, including multiple rocket-launchers, the general staff said in a statement. Russian aircraft had also struck at targets.
Russian shelling in the Luhansk area of Donbas killed 13 civilians over the past 24 hours, regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai said. Twelve of those deaths were in the town of Sievierodonesk but a Russian assault there had been unsuccessful, he said.
“The Donbas is completely destroyed,” President Zelensky said in an address on Thursday night. “It is hell there – and that is not an exaggeration.”