OSCE had a mission through the entire period 2014-2022 as observers and released daily reports of the region together with ceasefire violations so we can find it for pretty much any day online like this one from 2022-02-03, and you can look up others here.

I can't find it anymore but there was a video floating around of Zelensky inspecting the troops and telling them to stop attacking the DNR and the soldiers telling him straight up no. Although I can't find that video you can look at the election results from 2019, Zelensky ran on a platform of brokering a peace calming tensions with ethnic russians and general prosperity which is why Poroshenko accused Zelenski of selling out to Russia. A ton of people in eastern ukraine wanted things to calm down and that's why he got the most votes there, but the military and the neo-nazi paramilitaries kept on doing their thing and here we are.