Moscow's 'big revenge' has begun, Zelenskiy says, as Russia claims Ukraine gains

Russia has begun its "big revenge" for Ukraine's resistance to its invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday, as Russian forces claimed a series of incremental gains in his country's east.

Zelenskiy has been warning for weeks that Moscow aims to step up its assault on Ukraine after about two months of virtual stalemate along the front line that stretches across the south and east.

While there was no sign of a broader new offensive, the administrator of Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province, Denis Pushilin, said Russian troops had secured a foothold in Vuhledar, a coal mining