Vladimir Putin’s troops have reduced Mariupol to rubble and children have been kidnapped from here to Russia. Now the Russian ruler has had himself filmed for a propaganda appearance on state television in the devastated Ukrainian port city during a “working visit” – as the Kremlin calls it.
It was the first time since the beginning of Russia’s aggressive war that Putin visited the occupied territories of the neighboring country. Russian state television showed the 70-year-old at the wheel of a car driving through the city at night. Destruction of buildings could also be seen. Conversations with residents After his arrival in a helicopter, he informed himself about the situation during a tour and also talked to residents of the city, the Kremlin said on Sunday night. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Chusnullin informed Putin about the status of the reconstruction work. “People are starting to return to the city,” Chusnullin said from the passenger seat. Street lighting and bus traffic are back in Mariupol. According to the report, state television also showed Putin’s visit to the city’s philharmonic hall, where the president took a seat in a hall. According to Chusnullin, a university building and student residence is also intact. Staged thanks Apparently staged recordings of citizens thanking Putin for the unannounced visit were also shown. They “prayed for Putin,” say residents in the footage released by the Kremlin. Russia gave them “a little piece of heaven” with the new apartments that were built in place of the destroyed apartments. According to the Kremlin, Putin also held a meeting in a command center for the ” military special operation” against Ukraine, as the war is officially called in Russia. There the President was briefed by Commander Valeri Gerasimov, who is also Chief of the Russian General Staff, and other officers about the course of combat operations in the neighboring country. On the 9th anniversary of the incorporation, state television broadcast images of the Kremlin chief driving a car and opening an art school for children in the port city of Sevastopol. Russia launched a war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24 of the previous year began. Mariupol was besieged by Russian troops and only came under full Russian military control on May 20. The city was largely destroyed during the fighting. Ukraine has announced that it will liberate Mariupol. Russia is unlikely to achieve its goals in the near future, according to British intelligence services. This is shown, for example, by the fact that the authorities in the Russian-controlled part of the Zaporizhia region declared Melitopol the capital of the region at the beginning of March, the British Ministry of Defense said in a tweet on Sunday. According to Russia, this is a temporary measure until the city of Zaporizhia is completely under control.
