In June 1914, a London firm proposed to Kyiv Mayor I. M. Dyakov to build a "railless" tram (of course, this was a trolleybus).

It was said that the construction of a trolleybus will cost 5 times cheaper (although funds for road repairs and asphalt were not taken into account).

But due to lack of experience with such lines and the war, the talk of a trolleybus in Kyiv began only in 1935, after the transfer of the capital of the Ukrainian SSR from Kharkiv.

The issue with the supply of rolling stock was resolved; Moscow agreed to send the carcass of the trolleybuses, and Kyiv had to assemble them at the Dombalya Plant (now KZET).

This allowed to increase the production on the already existing route and to provide rolling stock on the lines that were to open this year.

However, due to the fact that trolleybuses were made quickly, factory defects had to be eliminated already in Kyiv.

It ran from the Bessarabka to the III International Square, thus the trolleybus completely covered Khreschatyk and tram lines closed in 1934.

It was planned to extend the network from Khreshchatyk to Podil (Volodymyrsky Descent) and to Pechersk (Kirova Street).

Thus, as of January 1, 1941, the route network looked like this: For a long time, after the invasion of German troops in the USSR, the trolleybus system did not stop working.

But after Soviet troops withdrew from Kyiv on September 18, 1941, they de-energized the city by blowing up power plants.

When the occupiers realized that they would have to leave Kyiv, they dismantled all the remains of the contact wire and took the 18 best YTB-4 trolleybuses to Poznań, Gdynia and Königsburg (6 cars to each city).

12 Almaty YATB-4As were mentioned and due to the long-term restoration of the network, 8 trolleybuses were ordered to be transferred to Donetsk and 4 to Kharkiv.

At the end of 1943, a special commission inspected the surviving trolleybuses and concluded that 10 of the 29 mobile units (4 of the 14 YATB-1s and all 6 YATB-2s) could be restored.

In 1944, route Lva Tolstoho Square – Dzerzhinsky Plant opened with 5 rolling stock cars.

In 1945, 5 more cars were added and route Lva Tolstoho Square – Bessarabka – Tarasa Shevchenka Boulevard – Cominterna Street – Railway Station were opened.

In 1946, 20 new cars were to arrive in Kyiv, and the line along Tarasa Shevchenka Boulevard was to be extended by the Brest-Litovsk highway to the Park of Culture and Recreation of the Bilshovik Plant.

According to the order of the City Council of April 1, 1945, the trolleybus route was divided into sections, so passengers traveling shorter distances paid 50 kopecks instead of 1 rouble.

But due to the catastrophic lack of rolling stock, the Dzerzhinsky Plant organized the production of trolleybus carcasses.

Due to such an unexpected replenishment, Kyiv in October 1947 transferred 4 MAN trolleybuses to Dnipropetrovsk free of charge to open a route network there.

This meant that the trolleybus was equipped with all the growing and busiest passenger traffic in the city at that time, which required coordinated and clear operation of the cars on the route.

The line was served by 6 trolleybuses.The weak point of the route was a wooden bridge across the Lybid River, because there was no full-fledged Air Fleet overpass at that time.

The construction of the new line was completed on April 22, 1955, at the same time route No 12 was opened: Stalin Square – Agricultural Exhibition.

The trolleybus was to be assisted by a tram line, the project of which was frozen due to the planned launch of the metro (which was opened only in 2011).

As of January 1, 1956, the route network in the city looked like this: The 1960s were the "golden age" of trolleybuses in the USSR, and Kyiv was no exception.

In April 2014, route No 6 was extended along the extended route (Independence Square – Diahnoticheskyi Center), and on August 23 of the same year, 3 routes were opened at once: No 9 (TRED No 3, Kyiv Airport – Lva Tolstoho Square) ; No 15 (TRED No 1, Vydubychi metro station – Palace of Sports metro station); No 33 (TRED No 2, Pivdennyi Railway Station – Diahnotycheskyi Center (Minsk District)).

[11] On August 18, 2018, the route No 9 was reoriented from Lva Tolstoho Square to Palace of Sports metro station through the South Kyiv Passenger Railway Terminal.

Namely:[13][14] In addition, on August 22, 2018, a new night route was introduced:[15] No 94 "Lva Tolstoho Square – Lesya Kurbasa Avenue".

During 2005–2008, some improvements took place – in addition to the appearance of a number of new lines from Darnytska Square to the Vyhurivshchyna-Troyeshchyna district – trolleybus depot No 1 was moved to the Teremky-2 district area and a number of routes in the city center were relocated due to traffic reorganization.

The purchase of fully low-floor trolleybuses of domestic production from Lviv and Lutsk and from Makarova plants was started.

As of August 2014, the fleet of Kyiv trolleybuses had 533 rolling stock, 44 routes, and the length of the lines is about 500 km (310 mi).