Russia’s new large-scale offensive against Ukraine has already begun as large-scale fighting is underway in the Donbas region, said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The main military operations are underway in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the east of the country, he added, claiming further that the fighting is taking place on a “quite large scale”.

“This is the major offensive, it has already begun. The Russian offensive war is not over,” added Podolyak.

Last week, the Ukrainian armed forces reported an increase in the pace of Russian military operations along the Svatov-Kreminna section in the Luhansk region.

Also, the U.S. Institute for the Study of War claims that the offensive by the Russian forces had begun in the Luhansk region, as evidenced by the involvement of at least three large Russian divisions there.

Two days earlier, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said that Kyiv expects the Russian offensive in Ukraine to target the Kharkiv region in the northeast of the country or Zaporizhia in the south. Danilov also repeated earlier predictions that Russia still intends to take over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov did not rule out a Russian offensive in the south, in the territory bordering Donbas, but assessed there being no threat to Odesa.