‘The Russians are trying to obliterate us. You think that we’d agree to half-measures now?’

Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of occupied Melitopol, says the battle for Donbas is also a fight for global security

• Russia-Ukraine war - latest updates

The sun was shining in Zaporizhzhia on Saturday and teams of city workers were out planting flowers on roadside borders. Market stalls were doing a healthy trade in everything from food and drink to electronics, and there were even a few cafes and bars open.

But the frontlines are barely a half-hour drive from this industrial city, and much of the region of which it is the capital is under Russian occupation. Underneath the calm exterior, most people here - and across the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine - are anxious about what lies in wait in the coming days and weeks.