KYIV, June 6 (France 24) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met troops on the front lines in Donbas Sunday as heavy fighting raged in the eastern industrial region that Moscow has focused its forces on taking.

Zelensky visited command posts and frontline positions in Lysychansk, which sits across the Siverskyi Donets river from Severodonetsk, where Ukrainian troops were pushing back against Russian forces who had earlier appeared on the verge of taking the strategic city.

He also visited Bakhmut, to the southwest in the Donetsk region of Donbas, and talked with servicemen, the presidency said.

"I am proud of everyone whom I met, whom I shook hands with, with whom I communicated, whom I supported," Zelensky said in his daily evening address after his visit.

The president said he also travelled to Zaporizhzhia in the southeast to meet with residents of Mariupol who had managed to leave the port city that was destroyed by months of Russian bombardment.