HKremlin President Vladimir Putin visited the occupied territories of the neighboring country for the first time since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. As the Kremlin announced Sunday night, Putin made a „working visit” to the coastal city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, which was devastated in heavy fighting. After arriving by helicopter, he briefed himself on the situation during a tour and also spoke with residents of the city, state agency Tass reported. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Chusnulin informed Putin about the state of the reconstruction work.
Russia launched a war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24 last year. Mariupol was besieged by Russian forces and did not come under full Russian military control until 20 May. The city was largely destroyed during the fighting.
Earlier, Putin traveled to the Black Sea Peninsula to celebrate the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. Russian television reported today, Saturday, that the Russian head of state made an unannounced visit to the port city of Sevastopol, the main port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. There he attended an art school, accompanied by local governor Mikhail Rasvogaev, as shown in pictures from Rossia-1 TV channel.
Putin also visited a children’s holiday camp, located at the excavation site of the ancient city of Chersonesos in what is now Sevastopol, and aimed at bringing history closer to children.
“Our President Vladimir Vladimirovich knows how to surprise. In the truest sense of the word, Razvozhiev explained in the Telegram online service. In fact, Putin wanted to take part in the opening of the Children’s Art School via video conferencing. New drone strikes in the west of the country, mainly in the Lviv region.
It was the Russian president’s first visit to Crimea to commemorate the annexation since 2020. At that time, he presented medals to workers building the Crimean Bridge, which runs from the Russian mainland to the annexed peninsula. In 2021 and 2022, Putin celebrated the festivities in Moscow with a grand concert.
According to media reports, Putin last visited Crimea in July 2020. Since the start of the war of aggression he ordered against Ukraine, the Russian president has generally avoided areas close to the front. At the end of 2022, he tested the navigability of the Crimean Bridge, which was badly damaged by an attack in the fall.
In 2014, after a controversial referendum deemed illegal by the government in Kiev and the West, the Ukrainian peninsula was incorporated into Russian territory in violation of international law. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced in January that he wanted to take back Crimea, „our country,” by force of arms. On the other hand, Moscow continues to assert that Crimea is Russian and refuses to negotiate over it.
After his visits to Ukraine, Putin met with the leaders of the Russian armed forces fighting in Ukraine, according to the Russian news agency TASS in Rostov-on-Don. Among other things, Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov informed him of the situation on the fronts.
Pro-Kremlin activists demonstrate in Moscow
In Moscow, on the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, pro-Kremlin activists demonstrated in front of the embassies of 20 countries classified as „unfriendly”, including Germany, the United States, Britain and Poland. The youth movement „Molodaga Gordia” („Young Guard”) declared that it „supports Ukraine (…) and supplies the Ukrainian regime with deadly weapons.”
The movement’s leader, Anton Demidov, said outside the US embassy, where about 400 people demonstrated, that the „plan” of the Ukrainian president and US President Joe Biden is to „take back Crimea with these deadly weapons”. The movement estimated the number of demonstrators at 5,000 people.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army announced that the Russian army attacked Ukraine on Friday evening with Iranian-made drones. 11 of the 16 drones were „destroyed”.
The area around Lviv in far western Ukraine has reportedly been particularly targeted by drones. „At about 01:00 in the morning, our region was attacked by Shahed-136 kamikaze drones,” said the district governor, Maxim Kositsky. He added that three drones and three other planes were shot down on non-residential buildings. There was damage, but no one was injured.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, three drones were shot down in the Dnipro region in the southeast of the country. There were no casualties there either, but „critical infrastructure” was hit in Novomoskovsk, and a fire broke out, destroying four houses and damaging six more.
The city administration said that the drones that were targeting the capital, Kiev, were all shot down by the Ukrainian air defense.
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