The visit triggered an angry reaction from Ukraine, with a presidential aide blasting its 'cynicism' and 'lack of remorse'.
KYIV - Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise trip to Mariupol, the Kremlin said Sunday, his first visit to territory captured from Ukraine since the start of Moscow's invasion.
The Russian leader took a tour of the city and was seen driving a car. The Kremlin said he visited a rebuilt musical theatre and followed the presentation of a report on reconstruction work. "The criminal always returns to the crime scene... the murderer of thousands of Mariupol families came to admire the ruins of the city and graves. Cynicism and lack of remorse," Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Twitter."He watched the 'rebuilding of the city'... at night. Probably in order not to see the city, killed by his 'liberation', in the light of day," the exiled Mariupol city council said on its Telegram account.
Putin also met army chiefs including the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don near the border with Ukraine, the Kremlin said. Kyiv says more than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the start of the conflict, many of them placed in institutions and foster homes.
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