Zelensky says eastern Ukraine hit with 400 shelling incidents in single day

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said eastern Ukraine was hit with nearly 400 shelling incidents on Sunday alone as Russia continues to pound the country.

“Although there are fewer attacks today due to the deterioration of the weather, the number of Russian shelling occasions remains, unfortunately, very high,” Zelensky said in his nightly address to Ukrainians. 

“As of now, there have been almost 400 shelling occasions in the east since the beginning of the day,” the president said. 

Zelensky said “the fiercest battles” are concentrated in the Donetsk region, and that Ukrainian forces are “little by little … moving forward with battles” in the Luhansk region. 

The regions are the easternmost in Ukraine, touching the Russian border. Russian President Vladimir Putin in September moved to annex Donetsk and Luhansk, along with the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

The Zelensky also said Ukraine is “holding the line” in southern Ukraine, “consistently and very calculatedly destroying the potential of the occupiers.” 

Moscow earlier this month withdrew troops from Kherson, a key city in southern Ukraine, after months of occupation — a move that divided some Putin allies.

Experts have said Ukraine’s success in Kherson could allow both sides to refocus troops to the battles raging in the east.

“Russian forces are reportedly beginning to reinforce their positions in occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, and eastern Zaporizhzhia oblasts with personnel from Kherson Oblast and mobilized servicemen,” the Institute for the Study of War wrote in an assessment on Saturday.

Putin moved to mobilize hundred of thousands of additional reserves in September, but it was expected to take months before those additional troops reached the front lines.

Ukraine was also hit over the weekend with apparent shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, with experts from the United Nations nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reporting they heard more than a dozen blasts near the plant. 

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi called the reports “extremely disturbing” and “completely unacceptable.”