President Vladimir Putin has made a surprise trip to war-ravaged Mariupol, the Kremlin said Sunday, in what marks his first trip to the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine’s Donbas region since the start of the war. Ukraine promptly slammed the visit, describing the Russian leader as “the murderer of thousands of Mariupol families”. The trip came after Putin visited Crimea on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula.
Ukraine says Putin a ‘criminal returning to crime scene’ of his Mariupol visit
Mykhaylo Podolyak, an aide to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, has slammed Vladimir Putin’s surprise trip to the port city of Mariupol.
“The criminal always returns to the crime scene… the murderer of thousands of Mariupol families came to admire the ruins of the city and (its) graves. Cynicism and lack of remorse,” Podolyak said on Twitter.
Mariupol’s exiled city council blasts visit by ‘criminal’ Putin
The exiled city council of Ukraine’s Mariupol has blasted Vladimir Putin’s purported visit to the ravaged port city that fell under Moscow’s control last year after a long siege.
“The international criminal Putin visited occupied Mariupol. 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 city council said on its Telegram account.
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