Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the bomb-ravaged Ukrainian city of Mariupol in his first trip to the occupied zone since the start of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.
Putin arrived by helicopter in Mariupol, Donbass, and took a tour of the city driving a vehicle himself, the Kremlin said on Sunday (19).
According to images broadcast by Russian state television, the trip took place at night.
In them, it is possible to see the Russian president in the streets in conversation with the residents.
“We pray for you”, says one resident, who adds that the city is “a little paradise”.
Putin was also at the newly rebuilt local Philharmonic and received a report on the reconstruction work in Mariupol, the Kremlin press service said.
It is his first visit to this port city in southeastern Ukraine, devastated after months of siege by Russian forces, who captured it in May 2022.
According to the Kremlin, the Russian president also held a meeting in Rostov-on-Don (southern Russia), near the Ukrainian border, with Russian Army officials, including the Chief of Staff, Valery Gerasimov.
The Russian president arrived in Mariupol after having visited Crimea on Saturday (18)on the anniversary of the annexation of that peninsula by Moscow in 2014.
Ukrainians denounce visit
Ukrainian authorities in Mariupol denounced Putin’s visit to the city.
“The international criminal Putin visited occupied Mariupol at night, probably in order not to see, in daylight, the murdered city for his ‘liberation,'” the city council wrote in Telegram.