Ukrainian president announces assault but declares: ‘We will fight. We will not give up anything Ukrainian’
Russia has begun its large-scale military action to seize the east of Ukraine, the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
“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,” he said in a video address late on Monday night. Zelenskiy said a “significant part of the entire Russian army is now concentrated on this offensive”.