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After 100 days of brutal clashes, invading Russian forces control about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Luxembourg’s Parliament on Thursday. The battlefield stretches across large swaths of the country, from the northeastern Kharkiv region to Mykolaiv near the south, Zelensky added.
Ukraine’s Donbas region
Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, known collectively as Donbas, has long been a flash point for conflict between the two countries. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly invoked the idea of Donbas’s distinctive regional identity as a basis to “defend” its Russian-speaking people inside Ukraine.
Parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions were already ruled by separatists loyal to Moscow before Russia launched its latest invasion in February. Since then, U.S. officials say Russian forces have not made much progress militarily in Donbas; one official described the progress as “anemic.” Read more.
Ukrainians rush to cross to neighboring countries
Fighting throughout the country has driven nearly 6 million people from Ukraine into neighboring countries, the U.N. refugee agency said. According to border police authorities, the majority of Ukrainians are fleeing to Poland.
Men ages 18 to 60 are barred from leaving the country after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to take up arms and defend the country against the Russian invaders.
After weeks of attempted evacuations, more than 125,000 Ukrainian civilians have been able to use humanitarian corridors to leave bombarded cities, according to a video address by Zelensky.
Russia had earlier proposed routes leading to Russia or Belarus, which were rejected by Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have accused Russian troops of repeatedly bombarding convoys of food and medicine trying to reach the besieged city of Mariupol.
Dylan Moriarty, Artur Galocha, Joe Fox, Harry Stevens, Hannah Dormido, Laris Karklis, Lauren Tierney, Tim Meko, Simon Ducroquet, Júlia Ledur, Adrián Blanco and N. Kirkpatrick contributed to this report.
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