Zelensky says Russia is suffering huge losses in the east

Amid heavy fighting in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said the “situation on the entire frontline is critical.”

In his daily video address, Zelensky said “a heavy level of fighting continues in some areas, and the situation in the Donetsk region is very difficult. The activity of the occupiers there is at the highest level: dozens of daily attacks.”.

Russian forces “suffer huge losses, but their order has not changed: to reach the administrative borders of the Donetsk region. We have not left a single centimeter of our land. And I thank our heroes. Take positions in the Donbass”.

In the southern Kherson region, Zelensky said Ukrainian units “work carefully, thoroughly and in the interests of the liberation of our entire territory. We are strengthening our positions, breaking Russian logistics, systematically destroying the aggressors’ ability to occupy the south of our country.

Zelensky said that work to restore normal life in the liberated areas is ongoing. In two districts of the Kharkiv region, “more than a thousand houses have been supplied with gas and electricity,” he said.

Across the country, the work of rehabilitating power facilities is ongoing, he said.

“As of this afternoon, about 4 million Ukrainians from 14 regions and the city of Kyiv are without power. But most of them are under stabilization, not emergency, blackout schedules.” The schedule includes 12 hours of power cut per day.

Zelensky said that to deal with the energy crisis, imports of goods needed during the heating season will be exempted from VAT and import duties.

“It should simplify and reduce the cost of supplying generators, batteries, transformers and other similar equipment for electricity and heat supply to Ukraine,” he said.