Russia has launched its full-scale and long-feared offensive on Eastern Ukraine after struggling on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement on Monday. Moscow’s troops will be aiming for the city of Donbas, he added.

In a video address released on Monday, the Ukrainian President said, “Now we can already state that the Russian troops have begun the battle for the Donbas, for which they have been preparing for a long time.”

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While sounding an alarm about the Russian offensive, Zelensky said that a “significant part” of the Russian forces in Ukraine have now been diverted towards Eastern regions of the country.

The shift in focus comes nearly two weeks after Moscow announced that a substantial amount of forces will fall back from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Officials from multiple countries, including Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States, warned at the time that Kremlin would just reposition the troops and not retract them.

“No matter how many Russian troops are driven there, we will fight,” Zelensky vowed in the statement on Monday. “We will defend ourselves. We will do it every day,” Associated Press reported.

The announcement from Zelenskyy came as Russia bombarded the western city of Lviv and numerous other targets across Ukraine in what appeared to be an intensified bid to grind down the country’s defenses. At the same time, the Kremlin continued building up its forces in the east, according to reports from Associated Press.

At least seven people were reported killed in the missile strikes on Lviv, a city close to the Polish border that has seen only sporadic attacks during almost two months of war and has become a haven for civilians fleeing the fighting elsewhere. To the Kremlin’s increasing anger, Lviv has also become a major gateway for NATO-supplied weapons.