German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul visited the city of Kharkiv, home to around 1.4 million people and just 30 kilometres from the front line with Russia, during a trip to Ukraine on Sunday.
During his visit, he spoke with students at the university, inspected a power plant that has already been hit six times by Russian missiles and toured a metro depot that was badly damaged as early as 2022.
On Ukraine's Flag Day, he also took part in a ceremony at one of the tallest flagpoles in Europe, where the blue-and-yellow flag flies at a height of 101 metres.
Kharkiv is regularly targeted by Russian missiles and drones. Air raid alerts sounded several times during Wadephul's visit. Despite the constant danger, the city's population of around 1.4 million has barely changed since the invasion in 2022.
The industrial city is the first port of call for many Ukrainians displaced by the war. Wadephul paid tribute during his visit to the "extraordinary will to resist" shown by the people of Kharkiv.
He said there was "a spirit of resisting Russian violence and keeping life going" - a spirit that should be taken back to Europe, he said. It was Wadephul's first visit to an area close to the front line during his fourth trip to Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky had explicitly thanked him at a meeting in Kiev on Saturday "for his upcoming travel to regions of Ukraine where the situation is difficult due to Russian shelling."
Ukraine's leadership sees the visit as a visible sign that Germany stands by its side in the fight against Russia. The precise destination of Wadephul's trip to eastern Ukraine had been kept secret for security reasons until he was on his way back to Kiev.
The minister had set off on Saturday afternoon after his political talks in the capital and stopped overnight in Poltava on the way. The journey to Kharkiv takes around six hours by car.
Visits by senior foreign politicians to areas close to the front line are rare. Wadephul was not, however, the first to take the risk. His predecessor Annalena Baerbock visited Kharkiv in 2023. The following year, she was forced to cut short another visit to a frontline area after being tracked by a drone.