Ukrainians hailed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy�s wartime visit to the United States as a success, while Russian officials said Thursday that it only fueled the conflict.

The U.S. has announced a new $1.8 billion military aid package, including supplies of the Patriot air defense systems, the most powerful such weapons to be delivered to Ukraine yet. Ukraine also stands to receive an additional $44.9 billion in U.S. aid as part of a massive government spending bill the Senate approved Thursday.

�We are returning from Washington with good results, with things that will really help,� Zelenskyy said on a video message shared Thursday night on his Telegram account. He thanked President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress for supporting Ukraine�s fight against Russia.

Neither Zelenskyy nor any other Ukrainian authorities have confirmed if he�s already back in Kyiv.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin had a different assessment of Zelenskyy�s trip, which included an Oval Office meeting with Biden, a joint news conference at the White House and an address to a largely supportive Congress.

�They say they may send Patriot there, fine, we will crack the Patriot too,� Putin told reporters, adding that the deliveries will only extend the fighting. �Those who do it do so in vain, it only drags out the conflict.�

Ukrainians saw their president�s trip as a rousing success.

�It�s an historical visit, the first one since the war began,� said Illia Shvachko, a 32-year-old computer specialist in Kyiv. �Getting weapons helps.�

Putin reaffirmed that Russia is ready for talks with Ukraine on ending the conflict.

�One way or another, all armed conflicts end with talks,� Putin said. �The sooner this understanding comes to those who oppose us the better. We never rejected the talks.�

Zelenskyy landed in Poland on Thursday while traveling back to Ukraine, according to information he posted on social media. He wrote that he met �a friend of Ukraine� on his way home. A video showed him being greeted by Polish officials after getting off an airplane. He and Polish President Andrzej Duda hugged, exchanged greetings and then sat down to speak.

�I feel proud of our country, for helping us, for not being left alone on this difficult moment,� said Larysa Doroshevska, a 71-year-old Ukrainian retiree. �I want to win so badly. I really want to defeat this darkness.�

Russia�s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, accused Zelenskyy and American officials of �focusing on war … and further tying the Ukrainian regime to the needs of Washington.�

Russian state TV sought to downplay the military and political support Zelenskyy received in Washington, stressing in a news segment that not all members of Congress showed up to listen to Zelenskyy�s speech, Commentators also criticized the Ukrainian leader�s �casual attire� during his White House visit with President Joe Biden.

For Tetiana Zholobok, a 31-year-old manager, the trip to Washington proved what Zelensky can do. �Our president can meet with Biden personally,� she said.

The Moscow-installed leader of Ukraine�s partially occupied Donetsk region reported that Ukrainian shelling of a hotel in the city of Donetsk killed two people and wounded several others Wednesday night, including Dmitry Rogozin, a former Russian deputy prime minister and one-time head of the state space corporation Roscosmos.

Rogozin was celebrating his birthday at a restaurant in Donetsk when the building came under fire, according to Russian media reports. He later wrote that he was scheduled to undergo surgery because a metal fragment was stuck in his spine above his right shoulder blade.

In a statement Thursday, Ukraine�s Border Force tacitly acknowledged the shelling in Donetsk, saying that Rogozin had illegally crossed into Ukraine and adding that such action �has consequences.� It didn�t say directly that Ukrainian forces targeted Rogozin in the city of Donetsk, maintaining an ambiguity in a similar way the Ukrainian authorities treated earlier high-profile attacks on Russian targets.

On Thursday, a car bomb killed a Russia-appointed head of the village of Lyubymivka in the Russia-held part of the southern Kherson region, Russian state media reported. Ukrainian guerrillas have for months operated behind Russian lines in Ukraine�s occupied south and east, targeting Kremlin-installed officials, institutions and key infrastructure, such roads and bridges.

(AP)