Putin visited Mariupol, the most devastated city in Ukraine, for the first time

The president inspected the reconstruction works of the city, which he arrived last night by helicopter.

Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Donbas for the first time on a lightning night visit to Mariupol, a port city in eastern Ukraine, on the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov, which in May last year came under the control of the Russian Army. Russia after almost three months of fierce fighting.

The Kremlin reported the president’s visit only this morning, after he left the area after the trip, which the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, described as work and an inspection of the reconstruction work of the city, to which who arrived last night by helicopter.

According to Ukrainian authorities, 50 percent of the homes and 90 percent of the infrastructure in Mariupol were destroyed during its capture by Russian troops.

Night tour

Putin toured the city in a car, which he drove himself, accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Jusnulin, who is supervising the reconstruction work, as could be seen in images broadcast on Russian television.

«It was a compact group of cars with the president. In one of them he was behind the wheel,” Peskov said at a press conference, adding that Putin “likes to drive.”

The spokesperson assured that the president “complied with all traffic regulations” while traveling through the city.

The visit to Mariupol, as well as the one he made this Saturday to Crimea, on the ninth anniversary of the annexation of the peninsula, was not planned, according to the Kremlin, and surprised both officials and journalists who cover the activities of the Russian president. .

Risk free

Although Mariupol is located about 80 kilometers from the front line, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have declared that the city is already within range of their artillery, so the “unforeseen nature” of Putin’s visit could have been due to reasons of security.

The Russian president had been criticized by the ultranationalist sectors of his country for not visiting, except for Crimea, any of the other four Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia, when his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been on several occasions practically on the front line of the forehead.

Putin’s trip to Crimea and Donbas took place on the eve of the state visit that begins tomorrow, Monday, to Russia by Chinese President Xi Jinping, so it is not ruled out that his visit is a message to his guest that controls the situation in the conflict zone, despite little progress on the battlefields.

The battle does not subside

As in recent months, the fiercest fighting takes place in the surroundings of Bakhmut and in the city itself, which is controlled practically equally by Ukrainian and Russian forces, the latter mainly made up of mercenaries from the Wagner Group.

So far, all attempts by Russian troops to close the encirclement around Bakhmut (Artyomovsk for the Russians) have not borne fruit.

“They are tactically unable to complete the operation to capture the Ukrainian regional center of Bakhmut. Yes, there are very active battles there, they still continue to launch dozens of attacks due to inertia, but they suffer enormous casualties,” said the spokesman for the Eastern grouping command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhiy Cherevaty.

According to the Ukrainian soldier, the defense of the fortress city, as the Kiev Government calls Bakhmut, is “well designed” and “bleeds the enemy dry and undermines their morale.”

The General Staff of Ukraine reported today that in the past day Russian troops lost at least 21 tanks and 23 armored infantry vehicles.

In turn, the Russian command reported that in the past twenty-four hours its troops inflicted more than 500 casualties, including dead and wounded, on the Ukrainian forces in different sectors of the front.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, troops participating in the military campaign in Ukraine managed to shoot down a MiG-29 aircraft and destroy several artillery pieces, as well as an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system of the Ukrainian forces.

EFE

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