ukraine russia signaled on tuesday it was bedding in for a long war in ukraine as the conflict entered its fourth month with heavy fighting in the east but signs of some normality returning elsewhere we will continue the special military operation until all the objectives have been achieved russian defence minister sergei shoigu said using moscows name for the war three months after moscows invasion western funds and weapons have helped ukraine hold off its neighbours advances in many areas including the capital kyiv russia is now focused on securing and expanding its gains in the eastern donbas region near the border and home to prorussian separatists as well as the southern coast ukrainian foreign minister dmytro kuleba warned that the russian offensive in the donbas is a ruthless battle the largest one on european soil since wwii the coming weeks of the war will be difficult ukraines president volodymyr zelensky said monday after regional leaders and residents reported heavy bombardments the most difficult fighting situation was in donbas he said singling out the worsthit towns of bakhmut popasna and severodonetsk ukraines armed forces said russian troops were conducting nonstop offensive operations in the region in the village of yakovlivka on a major stretch of the eastern front 55yearold ukrainian soldier andriy hid in a ditch as shells fired by encroaching russians whistled past too late to leave our guys have stopped firing back he whispered after glancing up and down the road we do not want to provoke them because then the russians will start shooting at us even harder the governor of lugansk said russia had sent thousands of troops to capture his region and that severodonetsk was under massive attacksergiy gaidai warned an estimated 15000 civilians still in the city that it was too late to leave stay in a shelter because such a density of shelling will not allow us to calmly gather people and come for them he said on telegram more than six million people have fled ukraine and eight million have been internally displaced since the war broke out according to the united nations speaking to regional counterparts from the russialed collective security treaty organization russias shoigu blamed his countrys slow advance on a deliberate attempt to avoid civilian casualties kharkiv metro reopens we are not rushing to meet deadlines added the secretary of russias security council nikolai patrushev in an interview kyiv has pleaded with western allies to send more weapons faster and take tougher action against moscow the head of ukrainian military intelligence kyrylo budanov said delays in getting to the frontline had left kyiv catastrophically short of heavy weapons he said however that he expected a turning point by august as they come through in an interview to news outlet ukrainska pravda speaking to political and business elites at the world economic forum in davos on monday zelensky urged an international oil embargo on russia as well as punitive measures against all its banks and