Zelenskyy mocks Kremlin’s 15 missed deadlines to capture Donbas

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday mocked Russia’s military drive, saying the Kremlin had set and later delayed 15 deadlines over more than four years to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Speaking in his nightly address, Zelenskyy responded to Vladimir Putin’s rejection a day earlier of a reported Ukrainian proposal to halt long-range strikes and scale down fighting.

Zelenskyy accused Putin of being out of touch with ordinary Russians, who now face queues at petrol stations due to Ukrainian strikes on oil industry targets. “Even an oil-producing state – a ‘gas station’ as Russia has often been called – is now facing fuel shortages,” Zelenskyy said. He described the shortages as a direct consequence of the war and an example of Ukraine’s precise response, which he said was not terrorism.

The Ukrainian president also highlighted that the Kremlin had set and postponed 15 deadlines over four years to capture four regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. “Russia’s political leadership remains obsessed with Donbas,” he said, warning that if Russia does not end the war, it will have to postpone another deadline.

On Sunday, Putin insisted Russian forces would continue pursuing their goal of fully capturing those regions.

Meanwhile, Russian attacks across Ukraine on Monday killed 10 people and wounded dozens. In the southeastern city of Dnipro, a missile strike killed six and wounded 29, according to the regional governor. Zelenskyy said the attack targeted infrastructure and rescue efforts were ongoing. In Zaporizhzhia, a drone attack on a passenger minibus killed two men and a woman, and injured eight others, including a seven-year-old boy. A glide bomb in Kharkiv killed a 23-year-old woman and wounded 10.

In Russia, a court in the city of Orenburg jailed three workers from the Pose bar for participating in the “international LGBT community”, in the first such case since Moscow designated the community as “extremist” in 2023. The owner, administrator, and art director were found guilty of organizing events demonstrating solidarity with LGBTQ+ people. Sentences ranged from two to seven years, and the owner was fined 1 million rubles ($13,000).

Ukraine’s energy grid faced strain during a European heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 36°C. Authorities in the western Rivne region introduced emergency power outages, while central Khmelnytsky also announced temporary cuts. Five other regions warned of possible blackouts on Tuesday.

Lastly, a Russian army veteran who threatened Putin with mutiny was jailed for 11 days after being convicted of displaying “extremist” symbols. The former soldier, who served on the frontline in Ukraine, posted videos calling for a meeting with Putin and alleging that soldiers were being tortured for refusing “mindless, suicidal orders.” The Kremlin said it had not seen the video but that the wording seemed strange.