Russia’s large-scale offensive in the eastern Donbas region has begun, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on April 18.
“We can now confirm that Russian troops have begun the battle for the Donbas, which they have been preparing for a long time. A large part of the Russian Army is now dedicated to this offensive,” he said on Telegram on April 18.
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“No matter how many Russian troops are driven there, we will fight. We will defend ourselves. We will do it every day,” he said.
He thanked all Ukrainian defenders, all cities of the Donbas, including Mariupol, as well as the cities in the Kharkiv region, which hold and “protect the fate of the whole state.”
Ukrainian military officials said earlier that Russia appeared to have started the new offensive after a series of Russian missile strikes in the western city of Lviv.
Ukraine’s General Staff said it had seen “signs of the start of the offensive in the eastern theater of operations,” and the focus seems to be on the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.
“This morning, along almost the entire front line of the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv regions, the occupiers attempted to break through our defenses,” Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said in televised comments. “They began their attempt to start the active phase this morning.”
Serhiy Hayday, the governor of Luhansk, also reported offensives.
“We’ve just lost control of the city of Kreminna. There is street fighting,” he said, noting that evacuations were no longer an option. “Every hour sees the situation getting worse.”
Meanwhile, Russian missile strikes killed at least seven people in Lviv, which has so far been spared fierce fighting in almost two months of war.
Eleven people were injured and are hospitalized, government officials in Lviv said. Three of them are in intensive care units and are fighting for their lives.
“Unfortunately, the patients were admitted in a very serious condition,” doctor Andriy Tokarsky said. The youngest patient is a 3-year-old boy.
Residents said they could see thick plumes of black smoke rising above Lviv after the explosion, while air-raid sirens sounded throughout the city.
Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskiy said six people were killed and another eight, including a child, were wounded by four Russian missile strikes.
He said three missiles hit military facilities and one struck a tire shop. He said infrastructure was “severely damaged” and that rescue teams were putting out fires caused by the strikes.
A hotel sheltering Ukrainians who had fled fighting in other parts of the country was among the buildings badly damaged, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
Russia claimed the strikes on Lviv destroyed a large depot of foreign weapons recently delivered to Ukraine.
Russian planes struck a Ukrainian logistics center holding “large batches of foreign weaponry, delivered to Ukraine over the past six days by the United States and European countries” and “destroyed” them, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
Konashenkov also said a store of ammunition was destroyed in the Kyiv region. The claims could not be independently confirmed.
Multiple explosions were also reported in the capital, Kyiv, and the Dnipropetrovsk region on April 18. Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne reported that two people were wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk attacks.
Russia said its forces shelled more than 100 targets where Ukrainian military equipment and troops were concentrated.
WATCH: The port city of Mariupol was home to 400,000 people before Russia’s invasion. It has been under siege by Russian troops and under constant shelling for more than 50 days. The city has been reduced to rubble, amid claims by Russia that it now has near complete control. Thousands of civilians are believed to have died and tens of thousands remain trapped in the city.
Konashenkov also said on April 18 that the Russian Army destroyed eight Ukrainian tanks and other armored vehicles, shot down three fighter jets, and destroyed four military armories. Konashenkov’s claim could not be independently verified.
Military experts say Russia is increasing its strikes on weapons factories, railways, and other infrastructure targets across Ukraine to decrease Kyiv’s ability to resist a major ground offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CBS on April 17 that the port city of Mariupol effectively doesn’t exist anymore because of the massive destruction by relentless bombardment.
Kyiv estimates that at least 21,000 people were killed in Mariupol by air strikes and street fighting. An estimated 100,000 people remain in city — out of its prewar population of 450,000 — trapped without food, water, heat or electricity, Ukrainian officials say.
WATCH: Instead of running for cover, a Ukrainian paramedic comforted a wounded civilian as shells rained down on the eastern city of Kharkiv. At least five people were killed and a dozen were wounded on April 17 when apartment blocks were bombarded by Russian forces.
Ukraine has vowed to fight on and defend Mariupol, defying a Russian ultimatum issued on April 17 that called on the remaining Ukrainian solders inside the encircled Azovstal steel plant to lay down their arms and surrender.
The city council of Mariupol said at least 1,000 civilians are hiding in underground shelters beneath the vast Azovstal plant. Those hiding are mostly women with children and old people, the city council wrote on the Telegram.
The White House said on April 18 that President Joe Biden had no plans to visit Kyiv. Zelenskiy has urged Biden to demonstrate U.S. support for the fight against Russia by traveling to the embattled capital, but White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said there are no plans for such a trip.
Zelenskiy said on April 17 that he thought Biden would visit, but said the decision belonged to the U.S. president and would depend on the safety situation.
The White House has said that, instead of Biden, it would be more likely to send a high-ranking official such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken or Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
