“It’s like hell there,” said president Volodymyr Zelensky in a bitter diatribe against Russia’s relentless bombardment of Ukraine’s Donbas on Thursday, which had left the region “completely destroyed”.

Mr Zelensky accused Moscow of carrying out “brutal” and “senseless” attacks as it escalated its offensive in the country’s east following the withdrawal of its troops from the area around Kyiv.

Allegations of genocide were also repeated by Ukraine’s president, who accused Vladimir Putin’s forces of trying to kill as many Ukrainians as possible while causing as much damage as possible.

He stated that while Ukrainian forces were still liberating the Kharkiv region to the east of Kyiv, Russia was attempting to exert even more pressure in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

On Thursday, Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video message, “It is hell there – and that is not an exaggeration,” adding that 12 people had been killed in the “brutal and completely mindless bombardment” of Severodonetsk.

“(There are) constant strikes on the Odesa region, on the cities of central Ukraine. The Donbas is completely destroyed,” he continued.

“This is a deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible, to destroy as many houses, social facilities and enterprises as possible.”

According to a local official, in addition to the dozen deaths in Severodonetsk, a further 40 people were injured as a result of Russian bombardment.

Sergiy Gaiday, the regional governor of Luhansk, stated on social media that  “12 dead and more than 40 injured in Severodonetsk”.   He accused Russian soldiers of hitting the city “randomly” with heavy weaponry.

The attacks began early Thursday morning and continued throughout the evening, he said.

Mr Gaiday wrote: “Information about the number of dead and injured is still being determined because it is impossible to examine the territory under shelling.”

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