The battle for Ukraine’s Donbas will be remembered for its brutality, Zelensky says.

Ukraine’s fight to defend the Donbas region against Russia will “go down in military history as one of the most brutal battles in Europe and for Europe,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Monday.

Mr. Zelensky reiterated his conviction that Ukraine would emerge victorious, naming a string of Russian-occupied regions around the country, including the cities of Kherson, Melitopol and Mariupol, and pledging that Ukrainian forces would arrive to liberate them.

For the moment, however, Ukrainian forces are on the defensive in eastern Ukraine, trying desperately to defend against the main Russian thrust toward the last remaining urban center in the Luhansk region.

The last of three bridges connecting Sievierodonetsk with its twin city, Lysychansk, to the west is now destroyed, Serhiy Haidai, the region’s military governor, said on Tuesday. Read more

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