Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday his armed forces were relentless in their efforts to “break” Moscow’s will to continue the nearly five-month war, while Russia’s Vladimir Putin praised the victory of his army in a fierce battle. Luhansk.

Russia captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysizansk on Sunday, ending one of Europe’s biggest wars in generations and completing its conquest of Luhansk province, one of two regions in the Donbas region that demanded for Ukraine to cede it to the separatists.

As the war enters its next phase, Ukrainian forces have taken up new defensive lines in the eastern part of the country.

“There have been no significant changes on the battlefield in the last 24 hours,” Zelenskyy said in a late-night video message. “The Ukrainian armed forces are retaliating, pushing back and destroying the offensive capabilities of the aggressors day after day. We must break them. This is a difficult task. It requires time and inhuman efforts. But we have no choice.”

Earlier, Putin congratulated the Russian forces on their “victory in the direction of Luhansk.” Participants in that war “must fully rest and restore their military readiness” while units in other areas continue to fight, the Russian president said in a brief televised meeting with his defense minister.

The battle for Luhansk has come close to Moscow achieving one of its stated goals since its failed attempt to seize Kyiv in March. It was Russia’s biggest victory since it captured the southern port of Mariupol in late May.

At the bend in the Chivarsky Donets River, which runs through Lugansk and Donetsk, far greater losses were inflicted on both sides by both sides, killing and wounding thousands.

The relentless Russian bombardment left Lysizansk in a desolate wasteland, neighboring Severodonetsk and surrounding towns, many of which contained heavy industrial plants that the defenders used as fortified bunkers. Russia tried and failed several times to encircle the Ukrainians, finally destroying them with artillery.

Although the destroyed cities have little strategic value, military experts said the battle could be a turning point in the war, with a major impact on the fighting ability of both sides.

“I think it’s a tactical victory for Russia, but at a huge cost,” said Neil Melvin of the London-based think tank RUSI, who compared the war to the big battles for trivial territorial gains that characterized World War I.

“It took 60 days to progress very slowly,” he said. “I think the Russians can declare some kind of victory, but the main battle is yet to come.”

Moscow hopes Ukraine’s withdrawal will provide momentum to push Russian forces west into neighboring Donetsk province.

Ukraine could have withdrawn from Luhansk weeks ago but chose to continue fighting to expel the invading force. With luck, a fierce war would leave the Russians too exhausted to keep their gains elsewhere.

Serhii Keitai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, acknowledged that his entire province was now effectively in Russian hands, but told Reuters: “We have to win the war, not the battle for Lysizansk… It hurts a lot, but it’s not lost the War.”

“This is where we see the Ukrainians advancing around Kherson. That’s where the counterattacks start, and I think we’ll see the momentum shift toward Ukraine as they try to launch a full-scale counteroffensive to push the Russians back,” he said.

Ukraine hopes, in part, to obtain additional weapons from the West, including rockets that can neutralize Russia’s huge firepower advantage, to strike deep behind the front lines.

Last week Ukraine scored its own major victory by expelling Russian forces from Snake Island, a desolate but strategic area in the Black Sea that Moscow captured on the first day of the war but can no longer defend against attacks. Ukrainians.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersen said the best way to end the war was to increase support for Ukraine and increase pressure on Russia. “We are ready for more sanctions” against Russia, Anderson said at a news conference with Zelenskyy on Monday, adding that Moscow must not be allowed to profit from invading her.

Sweden, along with its neighbor Finland, recently applied to join NATO. Anderson said it could take a year for her country to become a full member of the alliance.