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Five Killed in Russian Overnight Air Attack on Ukraine

Staff Reporter — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 09:29:18 +0000

KYIV (KAAB TV) – Russia rained missiles and drones on Ukraine in a mass overnight attack, officials said on Sunday, killing at least five people and damaging infrastructure across numerous regions.

Four deaths were reported in the western region of Lviv bordering Poland, where an industrial park in the regional capital was also set ablaze and parts of the city were left without power.

Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi urged residents to stay inside as authorities battled multiple fires. A Reuters correspondent heard explosions booming across the early morning sky as air defences engaged targets from several directions.

In southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia, one person was killed and nine others wounded in a combined attack that also left more than 73,000 customers without power, said governor Ivan Fedorov.

Civilian infrastructure was also damaged in the regions of Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Chernihiv, Kherson, Kharkiv and Odesa, said Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

“Another deliberate act of terror against civilians,” she wrote on X. “Moscow continues to strike homes, schools, and energy facilities — proving that destruction remains its only strategy.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces had fired more than 50 missiles and nearly 500 drones.

Russia, which has not yet commented on the attack, has stepped up strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid in recent weeks as the fourth winter of war approaches.

NATO member Poland said it scrambled aircraft early on Sunday to ensure its air safety.

“Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, while ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have been brought to the highest state of readiness,” Poland’s operational command said in a post on X.

Eastern-flank NATO members are on high alert after Poland shot down suspected Russian drones in its airspace in September and drone sightings and air incursions, including in Copenhagen and Munich, have led to chaos in European aviation.

Lithuania’s airport in Vilnius was closed for several hours overnight after reports of a possible series of balloons heading towards the airport late on Saturday.

According to flight tracking service Flightradar24, early on Sunday, commercial flights were using routings typically used when Poland’s Lublin and Rzeszow airports near the border with Ukraine were closed.

Reuters could not independently verify the Flightradar24 report.

There were no immediate notices on the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s website about possible flight disruptions in Rzeszow and Lublin.

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Enter The Kill Zone: Ukraine’s Drone-infested Front Slows Russian Advance

Staff Reporter — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 09:00:06 +0000

KYIV (KAAB TV) – A weary Ukrainian platoon commander speaks to the transformed nature of modern warfare as he’s medically evacuated from the front lines. “Drones, drones, drones. Only drones. A lot of drones.”

Kamikaze drones. Surveillance drones. Bomber drones. Drones that kill other drones.

These machines swarm the skies in vast numbers.

They’re cheap, they’re deadly and they’re among the main reasons Ukraine believes it can hold out against advancing Russian forces this year and even beyond, according to a dozen Ukrainian commanders, officials and arms manufacturers involved in Kyiv’s defence.

Ukrainian soldiers describe the drone-infested corridor covering about 10 km either side of the line of contact as the “kill zone” because remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deployed by both sides can swiftly spot and neutralise targets.

The war’s evolution into the most drone-intensive conflict ever seen has eaten away at Russia’s ability to exploit its traditional advantages in troop numbers, artillery and tanks, according to two Ukrainian battlefield commanders interviewed.

Any large vehicle operating near the front is now an obvious target, meaning Russian forces can no longer make the kind of rapid advances they did in 2022 with columns of armoured vehicles, according to the commanders as well as the founder of OCHI, a system which centralizes video feeds from over 15,000 Ukrainian military drone crews on the front lines.

“The enemy sees you completely,” OCHI’s Oleksandr Dmitriev added. “No matter where you go or what you are driving.”

Russia has consequently adapted its tactics, the Ukrainian battlefield commanders said; its forces now typically attack in small groups of five or six – on foot or on motorbikes or quad bikes – in an attempt expose Ukrainian positions by drawing their fire and then launching drone strikes at them, they added.

Russia’s defence ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment on this article.

Despite the changes in warfare, Russian forces retain the ascendancy and are making slow but steady advances in the east and north of Ukraine.

Russia has also caught up in UAV technology after falling behind early in the war, according to military analysts, and like its enemy is churning out drones domestically at a rate of millions a year.

Meanwhile, European leaders are trying to parse President Donald Trump’s announcement this week that America would supply arms to Ukraine via NATO, with Europe picking up the bill.

Many details remain unclear, including the types and quantity of weapons, how quickly they would be sent and precisely how they would be paid for, U.S. and European officials said this week.

The White House didn’t respond to queries on the supply plan. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the war had gone on too long and Trump wanted to end the killing, and so is selling U.S. arms to NATO for Ukraine and threatening hefty sanctions on Russia.

The people interviewed for this article, who were speaking before Trump’s weapons announcement, said they believed Ukraine could fight on and resist Russia even if no more U.S. aid was forthcoming, though they didn’t give precise timelines.

Many cited the primacy of drones as having levelled the field to some degree and made Ukraine more self-sufficient, and also pointed to growing military supplies from European allies.

“We can hold out for months,” said Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s arms expert and strategic adviser, when asked about what would happen if U.S. weapons supplies ceased.

“In 2023 or 2024, it would have been a lot worse – we would be talking about days or weeks.”

Polish military analyst Konrad Muzyka, who has made numerous visits to the front lines, said Ukraine’s focus was to sap the strength of Russian attacks, adding that Kyiv didn’t currently have the capability to launch offensives of its own.

He said Ukraine would likely struggle in a long war of attrition due to its manpower shortages and Russia’s superior resources. Although drones have changed the battlefield, he cautioned against overstating their ability to make up for an absence of artillery and mortars.

“To deliver the amount of damage that an artillery shell does to a target, you would need to launch tens of drones,” he added. “Drones can fill in the gaps to some extent and give you some breathing space, but they are not a substitute for artillery.”

DESTRUCTION RAINS FROM ABOVE

Drones are demons, at least for those in the kill zone that straddles the 1,000 km line of contact.

Reconnaissance UAVs from both sides – resembling shrunken airplanes, made of plastic or styrofoam and equipped with sophisticated cameras – can spot enemies from several kilometres away. They hover over the front lines, relaying back what they see in real time.

They find targets for the fleets of bomber drones – often hexacopters the size of coffee tables that can drop precision grenades with 3D-printed tailfins – as well as kamikaze drones, some with RPG warheads strapped on to pierce armour, which can fly into soldiers, tanks and weapons systems.

The platoon commander being evacuated from the front, a 35-year-old called Ivan who goes by the call sign “Atom”, said soldiers on both sides now saw UAVs as the biggest threat to their lives, replacing shells, mines and enemy fighters which were the primary perils earlier in the war.

A medic with him on the bus, 34-year-old Olga Kozum, concurred: Most of the battlefield injuries she and her colleagues treat are caused by UAVs, she said.

According to internal Ukrainian estimates seen by Reuters, drones accounted for 69% of strikes on Russian troops and 75% of strikes on vehicles and equipment in 2024.

About 18% of strikes on Russian infantry and 15% of strikes on vehicles and equipment were conducted with artillery, and even less with mortars, according to the same estimates.

The wartime UAV arms race has spawned many innovations; both sides are deploying short-range, fibre-optic drones that cannot be electronically jammed, as well as “interceptors” that hunt down and destroy enemy reconnaissance and attack drones.

Kyiv’s planned production this year of 30,000 long-range UAVs, designed to attack targets deep inside Russia such as arms depots and energy facilities, gives Ukraine an increased offensive threat, according to Vadym Sukharevskyi, commander of the country’s drone forces until early June.

The average cost of a long-range strike drone ranges from $50,000 to $300,000, about 10 times less than a missile of similar range, although a drone’s warhead is smaller, Sukharevskyi said in an interview while still in the post.

“This is our asymmetrical answer,” he said, adding that Ukraine started developing such drones “precisely because we lack missiles”.

Kamyshin, President Zelenskiy’s adviser, added: “You can’t win a big war if you are only defending.” Long-range drone strikes are “one of the main cards Ukraine can play against Russia right now”.

WANTED: U.S. PATRIOTS AND INTEL

Ukraine’s military-industrial base is expanding rapidly, and now accounts for around 40% of the weapons and equipment used, including drones, according to Zelenskiy, who on Wednesday set out a target to reach 50% in six months.

Kyiv has also sought to diversify its supplies and its European allies are providing growing amounts of munitions, potentially making the country more resilient to geopolitical shocks.

The Kiel Institute, a German-based economic research group, estimated in a report last month, opens new tab that Europe had surpassed the U.S. in total military aid provided over the course of the war for the first time since June 2022, reaching 72 billion euros compared with 65 billion euros from Washington.

The institute said aid flows to Ukraine shifted significantly in March and April as no new U.S. aid was allocated and European countries upped support.

While the U.S. has been – and remains – the largest sole supplier of artillery shells to Ukraine during the war, Europe is expanding capacity and has purchased hundreds of thousands of munitions from within and outside the continent.

Of around 420,000 artillery shells received by Ukraine from the start of this year until around mid-May, only 160,000 were from the United States, according to a European security source who requested anonymity to discuss confidential matters.

Kamyshin said Ukraine made around 2.4 million of its own shells in 2024, although these were mostly for mortars, which are shorter range.

Ukraine is nonetheless particularly reliant on the U.S. in the areas of air defences and intelligence sharing, military analysts said.

Kyiv particularly covets U.S. Patriot air defence systems, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles that Russia is firing with increasing frequency.

As of April this year, Ukraine had seven fully operational systems, well short of the 25 that Zelenskiy has requested, according to analysts at Ukrainian publication Defence Express.

Long-range drone and missile attacks often rely on U.S. satellite intelligence. European countries can only go a small way to replacing were the United States to stop sharing it, the European Union Institute for Security Studies said.

(Reuters).

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Russia Pounds Kyiv With Largest Drone Attack, Hours After Trump-Putin Call

Staff Reporter — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 17:48:31 +0000

KYIV (KAAB TV) – Russia pummelled Kyiv with the largest drone attack of the war, killing one person, injuring at least 23 and damaging buildings across the capital hours after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, officials said on Friday.

Air raid sirens, the whine of kamikaze drones and booming detonations reverberated from early evening until dawn as Russia launched what Ukraine’s Air Force said was a total of 539 drones and 11 missiles.

Families huddled in underground metro stations for shelter and acrid smoke hung over the city centre. Kyiv’s military administration chief said on Friday afternoon a body had been found in the wreckage of one of the strike sites.

Outside a high-rise apartment block damaged by a drone, residents stood around surveying the scene as the clean-up job began. Some cried. Others looked on silently.

“I woke up to the sound of explosions, first the Shahed drones started buzzing, and then the explosions began,” said 40-year-old resident Maria Hilchenko.

“Then people started screaming outside. The explosions from the Shaheds kept coming.” Shahed drones are an Iranian design, a variant of which is now manufactured in Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the attack “deliberately massive and cynical”, noting the first sirens blared as news came in of Putin and Trump’s call.

Later on Friday Zelenskiy spoke to Trump and the pair agreed to work on increasing Kyiv’s capability to “defend the sky”. He added they discussed joint defence production, as well as joint purchases and investments. The U.S. has paused some deliveries of missiles amid concerns about low stockpiles.

Kyiv officials said the attack damaged about 40 apartment blocks, passenger railway infrastructure, five schools and kindergartens, cafes and many cars in six of Kyiv’s 10 districts.

Poland said the consular section of its embassy was damaged in central Kyiv, adding that staff were unharmed.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said a Chinese component had been found in one of the Shahed drones attacking Kyiv, adding it had been found shortly after China’s consulate in the southern city of Odesa suffered minor damage in a separate strike.

Russian airstrikes on Kyiv have intensified in recent weeks and included some of the deadliest assaults of the war on the city of three million people.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said drone factories, a military airfield and an oil refinery were among targets it struck in Kyiv with what it called high-precision weapons. Ukraine did not give details of any militarily valuable targets.

CALL FOR SANCTIONS

Trump said that the call with President Putin on Thursday resulted in no progress at all on efforts to end the war, and the Kremlin reiterated that Moscow would keep pushing to solve the conflict’s “root causes”.

The decision by Washington to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine prompted warnings by Kyiv that the move would weaken its ability to defend against intensifying airstrikes and battlefield advances. Germany said it is in talks on buying Patriot air defence systems to bridge the gap.

On Friday, Zelenskiy called for increased pressure on Moscow to change its “dumb, destructive behavior”.

“For every such strike against people and human life, they must feel appropriate sanctions and other blows to their economy, their revenues, and their infrastructure,” he said.

Ukraine’s Air Force said it destroyed 478 of the air weapons Russia launched overnight. Airstrikes were recorded in eight locations, with nine missiles and 63 drones, it added.

Social media videos showed people running to seek shelter, firefighters fighting blazes in the dark and ruined buildings with windows and facades blown out.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian. Many more soldiers are believed to have been killed on the front line, but neither side releases military casualty figures.

Late on Thursday, Russian shelling killed five people in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Ukraine said.

(Reuters).

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Russia Launches War’s Largest Air Attack On Ukraine, Kills At Least 12 People

Staff Reporter — Sun, 25 May 2025 11:52:30 +0000

KYIV (KAAB TV) – Russian forces launched a barrage of 367 drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities overnight, including the capital Kyiv, in the largest aerial attack of the war so far, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens more, officials said.

The dead included three children in the northern region of Zhytomyr, local officials there said.

“The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,” he wrote on Telegram.

“Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”

It was the largest attack of the war in terms of weapons fired, although other strikes have killed more people.

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said 12 people had been killed and 60 more wounded. Earlier death tolls given separately by regional authorities and rescuers had put the number of dead at 13.

“This was a combined, ruthless strike aimed at civilians. The enemy once again showed that its goal is fear and death,” he wrote on Telegram.

The assault comes as Ukraine and Russia prepared to conduct the third and final day of a prisoner swap in which both sides will exchange a total of 1000 people each.

CEASEFIRE EFFORTS

Ukraine and its European allies have sought to push Moscow into signing a 30-day ceasefire as a first step to negotiating an end to the three-year war.

Their efforts suffered a blow earlier this week when Trump declined to place further sanctions on Moscow for not agreeing to an immediate pause in fighting, as Kyiv had wanted.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 298 drones and 69 missiles in its overnight assault, although it said it was able to down 266 drones and 45 missiles.

Damage extended to a string of regional centres, including Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, as well as Mykolaiv in the south and Ternopil in the west.

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Kyiv Officials Say At Least 14 Hurt In ‘Massive’ Russian Bombardment {PHOTOS}

Staff Reporter — Sat, 24 May 2025 08:17:43 +0000

Kyiv (KAAB TV) – Russia launched dozens of attack drones and ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight in one of the biggest combined aerial attacks on the Ukrainian capital of the three-year war, damaging several apartment buildings and injuring at least 14 people.

In the early hours of the morning, Reuters witnesses saw and heard successive waves of drones flying over Kyiv, and a series of explosions jolted the city. The capital also reverberated with the sound of anti-aircraft batteries trying to bring down the drones.

Pictures posted online showed smoke billowing from the top of one block of flats and flames leaping from part of another as emergency crews trained water on it.

An orange-red glow lit up the city as plumes of smoke wafted across the horizon.

By morning, the Kyiv city military administration reported damage in six districts of the Ukrainian capital, and a total so far of 14 people wounded.

As dawn broke on Saturday, residents at an apartment building just outside the centre of Kyiv were surveying the damage caused by drones.

Dozens of windows had been shattered, and balconies on one side of the building were smashed.

“I wish they’d agree to a ceasefire. To bomb people like this,” said Olha Chyrukha, a 64-year-old resident.

“The poor children! My three-year-old granddaughter was screaming scared.”

A 62-year-old resident, who gave only her first name of Kateryna, said: “It is a great distress for people. The first thing that I thought is that people got hurt for nothing.”

Both Ukraine and Russia said they will comply with a request from U.S. President Donald Trump to hold fresh talks about a peace deal.

The two sides carried out a major prisoner exchange on Friday, which Trump welcomed as the first step towards more positive developments.

However, Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of not being serious about seeking an end to the fighting.

Ukraine’s air force said that Russia had fired 14 ballistic missiles at targets across Ukraine overnight and launched 250 long-range drones, with Kyiv the main target.

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Trump Says Russia, Ukraine Agree To Immediate Ceasefire Talks, Kremlin Offers No Timeframe

Staff Reporter — Tue, 20 May 2025 04:53:58 +0000

KYIV (KAAB TV) – Donald Trump said after his call on Monday with President Vladimir Putin that Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations for a ceasefire, but the Kremlin said the process would take time and the U.S. president indicated he was not ready to join Europe with fresh sanctions to pressure Moscow.

In a social media post, Trump said he relayed the plan to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as well as the leaders of the European Union, France, Italy, Germany and Finland in a group call following his session with the Russian leader.

“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said, adding later at the White House that he thought “some progress is being made.”

Putin thanked Trump for supporting the resumption of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv after the two sides met in Turkey last week for their first face-to-face negotiations since March 2022. But after the Monday call he said only that efforts were “generally on the right track”.

“We have agreed with the president of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace accord,” Putin told reporters near the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

While the indications that Ukraine and Russia will continue direct contacts speak of progress after more than three years of the war, the Monday flurry of talks again failed to deliver on expectations for a major breakthrough.

European leaders decided to increase pressure on Russia through sanctions after Trump briefed them on his call with Putin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in an X post late on Monday.

Trump did not appear ready to follow that move. Asked why he had not imposed fresh sanctions to push Moscow into a peace deal as he had threatened, Trump told reporters: “Well because I think there’s a chance of getting something done, and if you do that, you can also make it much worse. But there could be a time where that’s going to happen.”

Trump said there were “some big egos involved.” Without progress, “I’m just going to back away,” he said, repeating a warning that he could abandon the process. “This is not my war.”

NO DEADLINE FOR AGREEMENTS

European leaders and Ukraine have demanded Russia agree to a ceasefire immediately, and Trump has focused on getting Putin to commit to a 30-day truce. Putin has resisted this, insisting that conditions be met first.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Trump and Putin did not discuss a timeline for a ceasefire but did discuss trading nine Russians for nine Americans in a prisoner swap. He said the U.S. leader called prospects for ties between Moscow and Washington “impressive.”

Russian state news agencies cited Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying that Moscow and Kyiv faced “complex contacts” to develop a unified text of a peace and ceasefire memorandum.

“There are no deadlines and there cannot be any. It is clear that everyone wants to do this as quickly as possible, but, of course, the devil is in the details,” the RIA agency quoted him as saying.

Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt said on X the call with Trump was “undoubtedly a win for Putin.”

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Russia Launches Drone Attacks On Kyiv, Sumy, Ukrainian Officials Say

Staff Reporter — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 09:54:21 +0000

KYIV (KAAB TV) – Overnight Russian drone attacks sparked a fire in Kyiv and injured a woman and damaged several houses in the northeastern city of Sumy, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.

The Ukrainian military said on Monday that it had shot down 61 out of 83 drones with 22 more likely downed by electronic warfare.

No injuries were reported in the attack that sparked a fire at a non-residential building in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

But a 38-year-old woman was hospitalised after Russia launched drones at Sumy, which is the administrative centre of the broader Sumy region, Ihor Kalchenko, governor of the region said on Telegram.

Five houses were also damaged, he added.

The photos posted by the emergency services from the site showed cars engulfed in flames next to a high-rise building with damaged windows.

The emergency services said the attack knocked out more than 300 windows and prompted evacuation of 65 residents from the damaged homes. There was no comment from Russia.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in the full-scale invasion, Russia launched in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.

(Reuters).

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U.S president Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine ahead of war anniversary

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 15:18:30 +0000

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a striking gesture of solidarity that comes days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of the country.

Biden spent more than five hours in the Ukrainian capital, meeting Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace, honoring the country’s fallen soldiers and meeting with U.S. embassy staff in the war-torn country. In his remarks with Zelenskyy, Biden recalled the fears nearly a year ago that Russia’s invasion forces might quickly take city. “One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden said, jamming his finger for emphasis on his podium decorated with the U.S. and Ukrainian flags. “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

The Ukraine visit comes at a crucial moment in the war as Biden looks to keep allies unified in their support for Ukraine as the war is expected to intensify with both sides preparing for spring offensives. Zelenskyy is pressing allies to speed up delivery of pledged weapon systems and is calling on the West to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine — something that Biden to date has declined to do.

In Kyiv, Biden announced an additional half-billion dollars in U.S. assistance — on top of the more than $50 billion already provided — including shells for howitzers, anti-tank missiles, air surveillance radars and other aid but no new advanced weaponry.

Ukraine has also been pushing for battlefield systems that would allow its forces to strike Russian targets that have been moved back from frontline areas, out of the range of HIMARS missiles that have already been delivered. Zelenskyy said he and Biden spoke about “long-range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine even though it wasn’t supplied before.” But he did not detail any new commitments.

“Our negotiations were very fruitful,” Zelenskyy added.

Biden also got a short firsthand taste of the terror that Ukrainians have lived with for close to a year, as air raids sirens howled over the capital just as he and Zelenskyy were exiting the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral, which they visited together. Looking solemn, they continued unperturbed as they laid two wreaths and held a moment of silence at the Wall of Remembrance honoring Ukrainian soldiers killed since 2014, the year Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed fighting erupted in eastern Ukraine.

Biden’s mission with his visit to Kyiv, which comes ahead of a scheduled trip to Warsaw, Poland, is to underscore that the United States is prepared to stick with Ukraine “as long as it takes” to repel Russian forces even as public opinion polling suggests that U.S. and allied support for providing weaponry and direct economic assistance has started to soften. For Zelenskyy, the symbolism of having the U.S. president stand side by side with him on Ukrainian land as the anniversary nears is no small thing as he prods the U.S. and European allies to provide more advanced weaponry and to step up the pace of delivery.

“I thought it was critical that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about U.S. support for Ukraine in the war,” Biden said.

Biden’s visit marked an act of defiance against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had hoped his military would swiftly overrun Kyiv within days. Biden recalled speaking with Zelenskyy on the night of the invasion, saying, “That dark night one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv. Perhaps even the end of Ukraine.”

A year later, the Ukrainian capital remains firmly in Ukrainian control. Although a semblance of normalcy has returned to the city, regular air raid sirens and frequent missile and killer-drone attacks against military and civilian infrastructure across the country are a near-constant reminder that the war is still fiercely raging. The bloodiest fighting is, for the moment, concentrated in the country’s east, particularly around the city of Bakhmut, where Russian offensives are underway.

Biden warned that the “brutal and unjust war” is far from won. “The cost that Ukraine has had to bear has been extraordinarily high. And the sacrifices have been far too great,” Biden said. “We know that there’ll be very difficult days and weeks and years ahead. But Russia’s aim was to wipe Ukraine off the map. Putin’s war of conquest is failing.”

“He’s counting on us not sticking together,” Biden said of the Russian leader. ”He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now. God knows what he’s thinking, but I don’t think he’s thinking that. But he’s just been plain wrong. Plain wrong.”

The trip gave Biden an opportunity to get a firsthand look at the devastation the Russian invasion has caused on Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians have been killed, millions of refugees have fled the war, and Ukraine has suffered tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure damage.

Biden, wearing a blue suit and his signature aviator sunglasses, pledged long-term support for Ukraine, saying that “freedom is priceless. It’s worth fighting for for as long as it takes.”

“And that’s how long we’re going to be with you, Mr. President, for as long as it takes,” Biden promised. Zelenskyy, speaking in English, responded: “We’ll do it.”

The Ukrainian leader, wearing a black sweatshirt, as has become his wartime habit, said through an interpreter that the “wide discussion” in their meeting “brings us closer to the victory” — hopefully, he added, this year.

“Right now, in Ukraine, the destiny of the international order … is decided,” Zelenskyy said. He added words of gratitude to Biden and to the American people for their support. “Ukraine is grateful to you, Mr. President, to all the U.S. citizens, to all those who cherish freedom just as we cherish them.”

Though Western surface-to-air missile systems have bolstered Ukraine’s defensives, the visit marked the rare occasion when a U.S. president has traveled to a conflict zone where the U.S. or its allies did not have control over the airspace. The White House would not go into specifics but said that “basic communication with the Russians occurred to ensure deconfliction” shortly before Biden’s visit in an effort to avoid any miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct conflict.

The U.S. military does not have a presence in Ukraine other than a small detachment of Marines guarding the embassy in Kyiv, making Biden’s visit more complicated than other recent visits by prior U.S. leaders to war zones.

While Biden was in Ukraine, U.S. surveillance planes, including E-3 Sentry airborne radar and an electronic RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft, were keeping watch over Kyiv from Polish airspace.

Speculation has been building for weeks that Biden would pay a visit to Ukraine around the Feb. 24 anniversary of the Russian invasion. But the White House repeatedly had said that no presidential trip to Ukraine was planned, even after the Poland visit was announced earlier this month.

Since early morning on Monday many main streets and central blocks in Kyiv were cordoned without any official explanation. Later people started sharing videos of long motorcades of cars driving along the streets where the access was restricted.

At the White House, planning for Biden’s visit to Kyiv was tightly held — with a relatively small group of aides briefed on the plans — because of security concerns. The president traveled with an usually small entourage, with just a few senior aides and two journalists, to maintain secrecy.

Asked by a reporter on Friday if Biden might include stops beyond Poland, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied, “Right now, the trip is going to be in Warsaw.” Moments later — and without prompting — Kirby added, “I said ‘right now.’ The trip will be in — to Warsaw. I didn’t want to make it sound like I was alluding to a change to it.”

Biden quietly departed from Joint Base Andrews near Washington shortly at 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, making a stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany before making his way into Ukraine. He arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. on Monday.

Other western leaders have made the trip to Kyiv since the start of the war.

In June, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi traveled together by night train to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Kyiv in November shortly after taking office.

This is Biden’s first visit to a war zone as president. His recent predecessors, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, made surprise visits to Afghanistan and Iraq during their presidencies to meet with U.S. troops and those countries’ leaders.

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