It was the first visit Putin has made to the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donbas region since the invasion, and the closest he has come to the front lines
A day after being accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, scene of some of the worst devastation of his year-old invasion.
Hundreds were killed in the bombing of a theatre where families with children were sheltering. The Organization for Security and Cooperation and Europe said Russia’s early bombing of a maternity hospital there was a war crime. Moscow denied that and has said since it invaded on Feb. 24 last year that it does not target civilians.Alexei Alexandrov/The Associated Press
The visit to Mariupol was the first that Putin has made to the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donbas region since the war started, and the closest he has come to the front lines. Putin’s trip to Mariupol took place in darkness. State TV showed him at the wheel of a car, driving through the city in the company of his deputy prime minister, Khusnullin, and being briefed in detail on the rebuilding of housing, bridges, hospitals, transport routes and a concert hall.
“The downtown has been badly damaged,” Khusnullin said. “We want to finish [reconstruction] of the centre by the end of the year, at least the facade part. The centre is very beautiful.”Mariupol is in the Donetsk region, one of four largely Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine that Putin moved in September to annex in an action rejected as illegal by most countries at the United Nations General Assembly.
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