Russian forces on Tuesday were preparing for an offensive in Ukraine's southeast, the Ukrainian military said, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to talk to the U.N. Security Council amid outrage over evidence Moscow's soldiers deliberately killed civilians. Russian President Vladimir Putin's government is pouring soldiers into Ukraine's east to gain control of the industrial heartland known as the Donbas. That follows a Russian withdrawal from towns around the capital, Kyiv, which led to the discovery of corpses, prompting accusations of war crimes and demands for tougher sanctions on Moscow. Russian forces are focused on seizing the cities of Popasna and Rubizhne in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the Black Sea port of Mariupol, the General Staff said on its Facebook page. Donetsk and Luhansk are controlled by Russian-backed separatists and recognized by Moscow as independent states. The General Staff said access to Kharkiv in the east, Ukraine's second-largest city, was blocked. Read more: https://7ny.tv/3r5krPk Check out more Eyewitness News - http://7ny.tv/2suJHTd NEW HERE? – Hi! We’re abc7NY, also known as Channel 7 on TV, home to Eyewitness News, New York’s Number 1 news. We hope you love us on YouTube as much as you do on television! OUR SOCIAL MEDIA – FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ABC7NY/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/abc7ny INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/abc7ny/ NEWS TIPS: Online: https://7ny.tv/36UsL9a Phone: 917-260-7700 Email: [email protected] #abc7NY #russia #ukraine