Zelensky claims that the "great retribution" of Russia has already started.

After months at a virtual standstill, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been warning for weeks that Moscow is attempting to scale up its attacks.

As Russian soldiers claimed a series of incremental victories in his country's east, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had started its "great vengeance" for Ukraine's resistance to its invasion.

Zelenskyy has been warning for weeks that after nearly two months of relative stalemate along the front line that spans the south and east, Moscow intends to intensify its assault on Ukraine.

 

A citizen of the Ukrainian village of Orikhiv strolls past a school that was harmed by Russian bombardment.

 

A footing has been established by Russian soldiers in Vuhledar, a coal mining town whose ruins have served as a Ukrainian stronghold since the war's beginning, according to Denis Pushilin, the administrator of the Russian-controlled portions of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

Yan Gagin, Pushilin's advisor, said that Wagner forces had partially gained control of a supply corridor heading to Bakhmut, a city that has been the target of a Russian attack for months.

The leader of Wagner said that his troops had taken control of Blahodatne, a hamlet close to Bakhmut, the day before.

Attacks on Blahodatne and Vuhledar, according to Kyiv, were successfully repulsed. The places of the reported combat showed obvious, if incremental, Russian victories, but the Reuters news agency was unable to independently confirm the circumstances there.

As retaliation for Ukraine's success in driving Russian forces from the capital, the northeast, and the south early in the conflict, Zelenskyy said that Russian strikes in the east were persistent despite suffering significant losses on the Russian side.

"I believe that Russia is truly looking for a major payback. According to me, they have already begun," Zelenskyy stated.

He told reporters in Odesa, a port city in southern Ukraine, that "every day they either bring in more of their regular forces, or we notice a rise in the number of Wagnerites."

 

 

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