Fight for Sievierodonetsk will decide fate of eastern Ukraine, says Zelenskiy

President says battle in key city the most difficult' since start of the war, as Donbas leaders warn Ukrainian forces have been pushed to city's outskirts

• What we know on day 106 of the invasion
• Ukrainian journalist confronts Russia's Sergei Lavrov with grain theft claim

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the battle for the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk will decide the fate of Donbas and is seeing probably the most difficult fighting since Russia's invasion began.

Sievierodonetsk remains the epicentre of the confrontation in Donbas," Zelenskiy said in a late-night address to the nation on Wednesday evening, claiming that Ukraine had inflicted significant losses on the enemy".