On a trip shrouded in secrecy, 3 European leaders say they are in Kyiv to offer support.

BRUSSELS — The leaders of three jap members of the European Union mentioned Tuesday that they’d traveled to Kyiv on a high-risk mission that was stored beneath wraps till after they’d boarded a practice to the embattled Ukrainian capital.

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, posted photographs on Fb of the boys sitting spherical a desk and poring over maps, and the Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, did the identical on Twitter. It was unclear what the setting was.

“It’s right here, in war-torn Kyiv, that historical past is being made,” Mr. Morawiecki wrote. “It’s right here, that freedom fights towards the world of tyranny. It’s right here that the way forward for us all hangs within the stability.”

Within the photographs, Mr. Morawiecki and Mr. Fiala are seated with the prime minister of Slovenia, Janez Jansa, and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the deputy prime minister of Poland, who’s chief of the right-wing Regulation and Justice Occasion.

The photographs sought to convey a daring present of help for Ukraine three weeks after Russian troops invaded the nation, and because the mayor of Kyiv warned of rising hazard for the capital and its inhabitants.

The symbolism was highly effective.

The Czech and Polish folks had been subjugated by the previous Soviet Union and lived by means of many years of communist rule. Now, alarm has been rising that President Vladimir V. Putin is in search of to show again the clock greater than 30 years and making an attempt to reclaim the misplaced Soviet sphere of affect.

The European leaders had been reported to have traveled by practice from the Polish border, a journey of at the least seven hours. Ukrainian officers launched few particulars in regards to the journey.

Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, writing on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, mentioned that the three touring prime ministers had arrived “on behalf of” the European Union Council. Nevertheless, E.U. officers mentioned the boys had not acquired the European Union’s blessing for his or her journey.

The go to got here as Russian troops stepped up their bombardment of the capital, hanging a navy manufacturing facility close to the middle of Kyiv and residential buildings and civilian areas within the western and northern districts round 5 a.m. The strike on the navy manufacturing facility, which precipitated intensive injury to retailers and buildings, was the primary bombardment in downtown Kyiv within the three weeks since Russia invaded.

The workplace of the Polish prime minister had earlier launched an announcement saying that the delegation would meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Mr. Shmyhal, the prime minister. The intention of the go to was to specific the European Union’s “unequivocal help for sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” mentioned the assertion.

The claims that the three leaders had been representing the European Union created uncommon friction inside the bloc. The E.U.’s 27 member states have projected a united entrance towards Moscow, taking extraordinary measures to punish it for the assault on Ukraine with document velocity.

Prime Minister Morawiecki of Poland introduced up his intention to go to Kyiv at an E.U. assembly final week at Versailles, exterior Paris. However the go to to Kyiv by no means turned a proper E.U. mission.

European diplomats mentioned that the three leaders’ travels had been a part of a broader Jap European effort to push the European Union to develop sanctions and provide extra navy assist to Ukraine, in addition to to fast-track E.U. membership for Ukraine. Nearly all of E.U. member nations are resisting these strikes.

Nonetheless, the reported go to to Kyiv, which some E.U. officers apprehensive may result in guarantees that might not be stored, was welcomed as courageous in elements of the bloc.

“That is Europe at its greatest,” declared a headline within the widespread German tabloid Bild, on an article that mentioned: “Putin’s struggle isn’t over so long as Europe is able to defend its values. With all of the means it takes to take action. Even when it’s only a practice trip within the shadow of bombs and missiles.”