The PHOTONS network, as a part of the AERONET ground network for aerosol remote sensing of Earth's atmosphere, covers more than 40 sites in Europe, Africa and Asia, providing sun-photometer measurements, calibration and data processing. Within the framework of scientific cooperation between the Lille 1 and the National Taras Shevchenko Kyiv Universities, the CIMEL CE 318-2 sun-photometer has been operated at Kyiv from the end of March, 2008. This article describes the A ERONET/PHOTONS measuring equipment, procedure, data processing and the preliminary analysis of columnar aerosol properties retrieved during April 2008-March 2009. Spectral aerosol optical thickness (AOT), Angstrom parameter and precipitable water vapor thickness were measured and analysed.