President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has called the situation in Donbas "very difficult."

"The occupiers are trying to achieve in at least a hundred days of war the goals they hoped to achieve in the first days after February 24," he said on Friday evening in a traditional video address.

Therefore, he said, "therefore, they concentrated maximum artillery, maximum reserves in Donbas. There are missile strikes and aircraft attacks - everything."

"We are defending our land in the way that our current defense resources allow. We are doing everything to increase them. And we will increase them," Zelensky said.

"If the occupiers think that Lyman or Severodonetsk will be theirs, they are wrong. Donbas will be Ukrainian. Because this is us, this is our essence. And even if Russia brings destruction and suffering everywhere there, we will still rebuild every city and every community. And there is and will be no alternative to our Ukrainian flags there," he said.