Never before has Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the region, justifying Europe’s largest invasion since World War II. With his visit to the city of Mariupol this Sunday, the president set foot in Donbass for the first time since his paramilitaries set fire to the powder keg in eastern Ukraine in 2014. A fleeting journey in which he traveled to one of the most emblematic scenes of this tragedy. “Nice and comfortable,” was his impression as he viewed the restoration work on the Philharmonic Headquarters, one of the Ukrainian city’s cultural landmarks that Russia wants to restore.
Mariupol represents Putin’s most strategic and valuable victory in the current war, despite the thousands dead and the great destruction left in its wake. “The international criminal Putin has visited the occupied city of Mariupol,” the city authorities denounced on the social network Telegram, citing the order of the International Criminal Court issued this week. They add that the Russian President’s presence took place at night so that “not having to see the dead city in daylight for his liberation,” reports the Agence France Presse.
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Wrapped in a bulky coat that hid any protection he could wear and surrounded by a huge retinue of bodyguards, Putin walked through Mariupol at dawn, while the night was still dark. So far, the Russian leader had avoided visiting areas close to the frontlines, and the closest to the war came on December 5 on another express visit to salvage operations at the Crimean Bridge after an explosion that damaged it. So far, Putin’s role on the ground has been much less well known than that of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has not stopped visiting the enclaves hardest hit by the conflict since the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia 13 months ago.
The surrender of the last Ukrainian troops stationed at the Azovstal factory in mid-May 2022 ended with the fall of Mariupol being decanted on the Russian side. At least 22,000 dead civilians had disappeared, according to estimates by Mayor Vadim Boichenko, who was interviewed by EL PAÍS earlier this month. The city council, who has been in exile since the first days of the invasion, laments the ease with which Kremlin troops surrounded and besieged the city. “The butcher, if it really is him, has come to the scene of his crimes,” wrote Anton Gerashenko, adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, on Telegram.
Putin, at the Mariupol Theater. PA
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“We need to start getting to know each other better,” Putin told an alleged group of city residents in one of the videos broadcast by Russian state media. “We had only seen you on TV,” one of them replied. The Russian president on September 30 last year proclaimed the annexation of the Donetsk region and three other Ukrainian provinces, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, but had never visited the area, which is indirectly controlled by Moscow via the puppet governments of the self-proclaimed breakaway republics.
During Putin’s conversation with the neighbors, another of them showed him the reality of the war. “My birthday is 15 days after yours. I’m 70 years old too, but I have nothing left,” he snapped at the Russian leader, who, according to the televised recording, only offered silence.
Departure to the Black Sea
The president arrived a day after visiting Crimea’s naval enclave of Sevastopol, which has been illegally annexed since 2014. One of the messages the Kremlin wanted to send with its visit is that it keeps this area firmly under control. Kiev publicly asserts that it is preparing to retake both Mariupol, the land bridge between Russia and Crimea, and the Black Sea peninsula itself.
Likewise, Putin’s official trip precedes the expected visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow. Both leaders will meet in person next Tuesday for the first time since Beijing announced its 12-point peace plan, which includes returning all occupied territories to Ukraine.
According to the Russian Presidency, Putin arrived in Mariupol by helicopter and toured several of its streets at the wheel of a car. The Russian leader visited a district of the city accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Yuznullin, who updated him “on the progress of construction and restoration work in and around the city.” Despite the devastation the city suffered from the fighting, the images released by the Kremlin only showed the newly constructed buildings in the city.
Putin, who this week faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes, staged a debate with Yuznullin in which they accused Ukrainian forces of committing atrocities. “Normal people don’t do that,” said the Russian head of state. The President then continued his tour in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where he met Valeri Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff and sole commander of the Russian forces invading Ukraine.
Mariupol is an important enclave for Russia to maintain the long-awaited land corridor that will allow it to connect the Crimean peninsula with the Donetsk region in the Donbass strategic area. This corridor, which also runs through the occupied cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk, allows the Russians better supply and logistical support for their ground forces. It is also an alternative to the connection between Crimea and Russia opened by Moscow in 2018 – inaugurated personally by Putin – via the bridge over the Kerch Strait, which was partially blown up in October.