The "human cost" of the battle for Severodonetsk, a strategic city in eastern Ukraine, is "terrifying", Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.
“The human cost of this battle for us is very high.
He is just terrifying,” he said in his daily address to Ukrainians broadcast on Telegram.
"The Battle of Donbass will surely go down in military history as one of the most violent battles in Europe," said the Ukrainian president.
"Up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers" are killed and "500 wounded every day" in battles with the Russian army, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Thursday.
Volodymyr Zelensky had for his part indicated on June 1 that his army was losing “between 60 and 100 soldiers” per day.
“A civilizational blockade”
“We are dealing with absolute evil,” he commented on Monday evening.
Before adding: "We have no choice but to move forward and liberate our country", including the regions occupied by the Russians in the South and East which face "a civilizational blockade", the Russians "blocking all communications" to the outside.
Zelensky also once again called on the West to provide “more weapons” to the Ukrainian army, at a time when troops from Moscow largely control Severodonetsk and continue to pound Ukrainian artillery.
Earlier in the evening, the governor of the Lugansk region, Serguiï Gaïdaï, had indicated that “70-80% of the city” was occupied by the Russians, specifying that “the three bridges (connecting Severodonetsk to its neighboring city of Lysychansk ) were destroyed”.
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War in Ukraine
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