Volodymyr Zelensky made the statement in a video address to the nation on Sunday night, according to officials.
The Ukrainian president said: “Today I would like to pay special tribute to the bravery, strength, and invincibility of the warriors fighting in Donbas.”
He added: “It is one of the toughest battles. Painful and challenging.”
Zelensky said: “Thank you, guys! I thank all the soldiers, guardsmen and border guards who are defending our country in the Bakhmut, Vuhledar, Avdiivka, Siversk, Svatove, Lyman and Zaporizhzhia directions.”
He also thanked volunteers, medics and nurses helping the fighters.
Zelensky vowed: “We are already preparing for the next week, and there will be new results for Ukraine. We will endure, drive out the invaders, and bring them to justice. Ukraine will emerge victorious!”
Intense fighting continues for Bakhmut
Zelensky’s address came as Ukrainian forces came under increasingly fierce pressure in the city of Bakhmut, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported.
Earlier on Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces had repelled “over 130 Russian attacks,” according to The Kyiv Independent.
Russian troops continued attempts to encircle Bakhmut, reportedly “contesting lines of communication and preventing resupply,” The Guardian said.
Russia abducted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children: official
Daria Herasymchuk, Ukraine’s commissioner for children’s rights, has said that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russia since the start of the war.
Herasymchuk told the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper: “Today the Russians say they have 738,000 Ukrainian kids they evacuated—but it’s not evacuation, it’s abduction and brainwashing and it’s an act of genocide.”
She added: “We don’t believe it’s as many as that—we have so far documented 16,221—but I think it’s a few hundred thousand.”
“It’s all part of their Russification campaign,” Herasymchuk said.
Only 307 children have so far been retrieved, according to Herasymchuk.
Last week, the European Union’s executive announced a joint initiative with Poland to track down Ukrainian children who have been illegally deported to Russia, and bring those responsible to trial.
Ukraine’s special forces destroy Russian observation tower
Ukraine’s special forces destroyed a Russian observation tower in the western city of Bryansk using a kamikaze drone, The Guardian reported on Sunday.
A special forces unit, Kraken, has taken credit for the attack on the facility, which was being used to monitor the border with Ukraine, according to the British newspaper.
Death toll from Zaporizhzhia strike rises to 13
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on a five-storey apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday has increased to 13, including an eighth-month child, local officials said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a woman and two children were killed by Russian mortar fire in one of the villages in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, The Guardian reported on Sunday.
Monday is day 376 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, The Guardian, The Kyiv Independent, The Sunday Times