President Volodymyr Zelenskiy traveled on October 3 to the front line in eastern Ukraine's regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk where he met with troops engaged in fighting with attacking Russian forces.
"Today, we are visiting our brigades fighting in one of the hotspots, the Kupyansk-Lyman direction where Russian occupiers constantly attempt to attack our positions," Zelenskiy said in a post on the social media network X, formerly known as Twitter.
"We met with brigade and battalion commanders to discuss the battlefield situation, pressing issues, and needs," he said, adding, "I thank them for their service!"
Zelenskiy's visit to the front line came as fighting continued in the south and east, where Ukrainian and Russian forces have been engaged for months in close-quarter combat operations.
In the southern region of Kherson, Russian shelling has killed two people and wounded seven others over the past 24 hours, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram on October 3.
"The Russian military targeted residential areas in the region, educational institutions, a church, the headquarters of a humanitarian organization, a shopping center, an auto center, a factory, and a critical infrastructure facility in Kherson [city]," Prokudin said.
Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL's Ukraine Live Briefing gives you the latest developments on Russia's invasion, Western military aid, the plight of civilians, and territorial control maps. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
Kherson, which was partially liberated by Ukrainian troops one year ago, has been constantly targeted by Russian shelling from across the Dnieper River.
Russia also launched a fresh wave of Iranian-made drones on the Mykolayiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions overnight, Ukraine's air defenses said early on October 3, adding that it had shot down 29 out of the 31 drones. One Russian cruise missile was also destroyed, air defenses said.
Ukraine's southern command said the attack lasted more than three hours.
In the town of Pavlohrad, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, a Russian drone struck an industrial enterprise, causing a fire, Governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram.
"The fire has already been extinguished, but there is destruction among the production facilities," Lysak added.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces fought 35 close-quarters battles over the past 24 hours as they pressed with an offensive in the Bakhmut area of the eastern Donetsk region and in the direction of the southern city of Melitopol, the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said in its daily report on October 2.
Russian forces captured Bakhmut earlier this year following a months of bloody fighting that took a heavy toll on both sides.
Zelenskiy on October 2 told European Union foreign ministers that Ukraine's victory in the war with invading Russian forces depends "directly" on Kyiv's cooperation with the EU amid growing concerns about a possible weakening of support in the bloc.
The concerns were prompted by the election victory in neighboring Slovakia of a populist party that opposes military aid for the war-wracked country.
Zelenskiy also told the gathering that sanctions pressure on Russia was "obviously not enough," calling for more cooperation to end any "schemes of circumvention of sanctions by Russia" and an end to supplies to Russia that enable it to increase military production.
In Washington, where Congress only managed to avert a government shutdown over the weekend by removing aid to Ukraine from a spending deal, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre rejected claims about war fatigue in Western countries.
"If Putin thinks he can outlast us he's wrong," Jean-Pierre said.