KYIV, UKRAINE (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the occupied port city of Mariupol, making his first visit to Ukrainian territory illegally annexed by Moscow in September, after the International Criminal Court ruled against his war. After issuing a warrant for the alleged crime, he showed defiance.
Putin arrived in Mariupol late Saturday after visiting the Crimea peninsula southwest of Mariupol to mark his ninth anniversary of Ukraine’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday. said to He was shown chatting with residents of Mariupol and attending an art school and children’s center in Sevastopol, Crimea.
Mariupol became a symbol of global resistance after overwhelming unmanned Ukrainian forces held out at a local ironworks for about three months until Moscow finally took control in May. Much of the city was reduced to rubble by Russian shelling. Putin has not commented on the arrest warrant, which has deepened his international isolation, but is unlikely to be brought to justice anytime soon. Invalid” dismissed.
According to Russian reports, Putin arrived in Mariupol by helicopter and drove around the city’s “monuments”, concert halls and waterfront. State broadcaster Russia 24 showed Putin chatting with locals outside a newly constructed apartment complex on Sunday, and he was shown to one of the apartments.
After his visit to Mariupol, Putin met with Russian military leaders and troops at his Donu command post in Rostovna, a city in southern Russia about 180 kilometers (about 112 miles) to the east, and discussed Russia’s position in Ukraine. military operation. Peskov said.
Peskov said the visit was unannounced and that Putin intended to “inspect the work of the (command) post in its normal mode of operation.”
In a meeting with state agency RIA-Novosti, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Kusnulin said Russia would remain in Mariupol. He said he hopes the government will complete the reconstruction of the dilapidated downtown area by the end of the year.
“People are coming back. Seeing the reconstruction progress, people are actively coming back,” Kusnurin told the RIA. Mikhaylo Podoljak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, disdained Putin’s visit to Mariupol.
An estimated 100,000 remained from the pre-war population of 450,000 when Moscow took full control of Moscow in his May. Many were trapped without access to food, water, heating or electricity. Relentless bombing destroyed or hollowed out rows of buildings.
Mariupol’s plight first came to international attention with an airstrike on a Russian maternity hospital on March 9, 2022, less than two weeks after his invasion of Ukraine began. A week later, about 300 people were reportedly killed in a bombing of a theater that served as the city’s largest air raid shelter. Evidence obtained by the Associated Press suggests that the actual death toll could be closer to 600.
At the sprawling Azovstal Ironworks east of Mariupol, a small group of Ukrainian fighters held out for his 83 days before surrendering. Their tenacious defense held back Russian forces and became a symbol of Ukraine’s tenacity in the face of Moscow’s invasion.
Taking Bakhmut would allow the Kremlin to emerge victorious on the battlefield after months of setbacks and could pave the way for Russia to threaten other Ukrainian strongholds in the region, such as Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. .
Russian troops shelled a house in Birozerka on the western outskirts of Kherson, and a woman was hospitalized after being dragged from the rubble, according to Kherson’s local military authority.
