It is the first time that the Russian president has gone to the territories taken by Russia in the Donbas region of Ukraine since the start of the war. Vladimir Putin arrived in Mariupol after passing through Crimea on Saturday, on the ninth anniversary of the annexation of this Ukrainian peninsula to Russian territory. A symbolic visit to what has been his most strategic victory in the current war.
He was the spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitrypeskovwho confirmed the arrival of the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin to Mariupol, a city on Ukrainian territory that has been under Russian control since last year.
Putin’s surprise visit came just two days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him, which the Kremlin declared invalid, since Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC and is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the organization. Putin, in particular, has not ruled on the matter.
Russian news agencies reported that Putin arrived in Mariupol by helicopter, marking the closest approach the Russian president has made to the front lines of the war since the conflict began on February 24.
peskov told reporters that the Russian president was intending to “inspect the work of the (command) post in its ordinary mode of operation“.
In an interview with the state agency ESTUARYthis Sunday, March 19, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Marathkhusnullin, assured that Russia had taken Mariupol never to return it. In addition, he explained that the Government had the goal of completing the reconstruction of the city center by the end of this year and that they were there “to stay.”
“People have started to come back. When they saw that the reconstruction was underway, people began to actively return“said khusnullin to ESTUARY.
Once in the city, while driving a car, the president toured various districts and made a few stops to speak with residents.
The leader of the great ex-Soviet nation was seen, surrounded by his bodyguards, at the city’s memorial sites ukrainian as a concert hall and the coast, according to press reports russians.
In videos of the state channel of Rossiya 24, Putin is seen chatting with residents outside what appears to be a newly built residential complex and being shown around one of the apartments.
After completing his stay in Mariupol, Putin had a meeting with military leaders and Russian troops at a command post in Rostov–on-Don, a city in southern Russia about 180 kilometers further east.
The Kremlin also announced that the president met with General ValeryGerasimovthe man in charge of Russian military operations in Ukraine.
The taking of Mariupol
This port city, located in the eastern region of Ukraine, became a global symbol after Ukrainian troops, outgunned and outnumbered, resist Moscow attacks on the steel factory Azovstal for nearly three months, before handing over control to Moscow troops in May 2022.
The capture of Mariupol meant Putin’s first major victory after the failed capture of the capital, kyiv. When it fully captured the city in May, international organizations estimated that only 100,000 people remained, out of a population of 450,000.
Many were trapped without water, food, electricity or heating and their city reduced to ruins.
A week later, some 300 people were killed in the bombing of a theater that served as the largest bomb shelter in the city. Evidence obtained by the AP news agency estimated that the actual death toll may have been closer to 600 people.
Located in the sea of AzovMariupol appeared on the front pages of the international press when the bombing of a maternal and child hospital was reported in the midst of attacks between Kiev and Moscow on March 9, 2022. The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, said that this fact would be proof of the “genocide of the ukrainians“ and The Organization for Security and Cooperation and Europe (OSCE) said that Russia’s bombing of this facility was a war crime.
Russian annexations of Ukrainian territory
The great move that the Russian president made in 2014, when he annexed Crimea to his territory, was replicated in the current war with Ukraine.
Nine years ago, President Putin wanted to recover the peninsula to facilitate the exit of his naval forces to the Black Sea and for its gas reserves.
At that time, one of the president’s great arguments was that the Crimean population had more affinity, connection and culture with Russia than with Ukraine.
Official data from 2014 shows that 60% of the citizens were of Russian origin and only 25% of the region were of Ukrainian ethnic origin, many were Russian speakers and shared the ideals of Vladimir Putin.
The annexation was ruled illegal by the international community and came with packages of economic sanctions for Moscow.
Eight years after that annexation, another Russian decree came to seize four important regions of eastern Ukraine. On September 27, 2022 Vladimir Putin publicly held the referendum on the annexation of the separatist regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye.
On October 5 of the same year, Putin signed four constitutional laws on the entry of the people’s republics into the Russian Federation, a measure that established the Russian language as the official language of the four regions, although it does not restrict Ukrainian, and establishes the use of the ruble as the national currency.
With Reuters and AP.
