President Volodymyr Zelensky met soldiers and handed out military awards near the frontline in eastern Ukraine, in a visit highlighting his role as a wartime leader and aimed at boosting morale.
The trip on Sunday was shrouded in secrecy beforehand and announced in statements issued late on Sunday and early on Monday. He travelled to the frontline city of Lysychansk, perhaps the closest he has come to active fighting in the east since the war began.
It’s a perilous journey to reach Lysychansk. A highway and several back roads pass through farm fields pockmarked with artillery craters. Along the way, an oil refinery that has been on fire for weeks smoulders, belching smoke. On the sides of the roads sit the burned orange husks of cars that didn’t make it, pushed aside to make way for others trying to get through.
Officials offered few details of how Zelensky reached the city, which has been bombarded by artillery and is at risk of being surrounded by Russian forces in one of the hottest areas of the front. The Ukrainian supply lines into the area, along roads that run through plains and are exposed to nearby Russian troops, are often attacked.
“I am proud of everyone with whom I met, whom I shook hands with,” Zelensky said in a video address describing his visit.
He also offered a cryptic statement of support, saying: “We brought something to the military. I will not talk about it in detail.” It was unclear whether the comment referred to deliveries to the front of newly arrived western weaponry, which soldiers have said are sorely needed to even the fight against better armed Russian forces.
The visit was only the second official trip that Zelensky — who has signalled his country’s war footing in part by wearing military-style green T-shirts or other army clothing — has taken outside the region around Kyiv since the war began in late February.
In addition to visiting Lysychansk, as part of the same trip, Zelensky met in the Zaporizhzhia region with civilians who fled the city of Mariupol, which is now under Russian occupation.
New York Times News Service
