President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made his first journey to territory captured by his forces since they invaded Ukraine greater than a yr in the past, touring late on Saturday to the ravaged metropolis of Mariupol, the place Russia staged a few of its most brutal assaults of the warfare.
The go to gave the impression to be each a defiant gesture only a day after a world court docket issued a warrant for his arrest for warfare crimes and an indication of Mr. Putin’s dedication to the struggle forward of the arrival in Moscow of President Xi Jinping of China, an important financial associate to Russia for the reason that invasion started.
Mariupol grew to become an emblem of Ukraine’s agony when Russian forces laid waste to it with artillery beginning quickly after the invasion. It later developed right into a beacon of Ukrainian resistance as, for weeks, town’s final defenders endured a bitter siege at a metal plant.
An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine stated on Sunday that Mr. Putin’s go to confirmed an absence of regret. “The prison all the time returns to the crime scene,” the adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, wrote on Twitter.
The Kremlin stated that Mr. Putin had flown by helicopter to the airport in Mariupol and toured a number of neighborhoods, spoken with residents and inspected reconstruction websites. Russia’s bombardment lowered a lot of town to rubble, and a few rebuilding is now underway. Photos launched by Russian tv confirmed Mr. Putin touring websites in darkness.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, described the go to as a “full-scale working journey” and careworn that many facets of it weren’t deliberate. There was “no motorcade as such,” he stated, including that Mr. Putin had pushed himself via town.
The battle for Mariupol, a port metropolis with a prewar inhabitants of about 400,000, was marked by wanton destruction by Russian forces, who bombed a maternity hospital and at instances opened hearth on condo buildings with tanks from shut vary. It additionally featured the deadliest single assault on civilians through the warfare, when Russian forces bombed a theater through which residents had taken shelter.
The United Nations stated that at the least 1,300 died within the battle for town however that the true toll was prone to have been hundreds increased.
The go to to Mariupol by Mr. Putin — who now stands accused by the Worldwide Legal Court docket of presiding over the kidnapping of Ukrainian youngsters — was his second unannounced journey of the weekend to elements of Ukraine that Russian forces have occupied. On Saturday, he went to Crimea in a go to timed to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the peninsula’s unlawful annexation by Russia.
However Mariupol was the closest Mr. Putin has come to the entrance strains for the reason that begin of the full-scale invasion final February — town is about 50 miles southeast of the city of Vuhledar, the place Russian forces sustained heavy losses simply weeks in the past and the place fierce combating is ongoing.
Mr. Zelensky has made a number of visits to the entrance line and to not too long ago recaptured elements of the nation, together with a go to to Bakhmut in December. The embattled metropolis in Donetsk Province, which is a part of the Donbas area in jap Ukraine, additionally has been held up as an emblem of nationwide resistance.
Mr. Putin used the false argument that Ukraine was finishing up a “genocide” in Donbas to assist justify his resolution to launch the full-scale invasion. Mariupol, which is in Donbas, was additionally dwelling to a lot of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, a gaggle whose onetime far-right connections allowed Mr. Putin to assert that Russia was invading to “denazify” the nation.
Mr. Putin has set the total seize of Donbas, the place Russia has held substantial territory since 2014, as the primary goal of a navy offensive that started this yr. In October, Moscow illegally annexed 4 of Ukraine’s provinces, together with Donetsk, in a transfer that was extensively condemned.
The timing of Mr. Putin’s journey to Mariupol might be interpreted as an affront to the I.C.C., which on Friday issued the warrant for his arrest. The warrant claims that Mr. Putin bears particular person prison accountability for the deportation of hundreds of Ukrainian youngsters to Russia since final yr’s invasion. The Ukrainian authorities have stated that many kidnapped youngsters have been from Mariupol — and Mr. Putin’s weekend journey to Crimea notably featured a go to to a youngsters’s middle.
Though the I.C.C. warrant may have an effect on Mr. Putin’s capability to journey abroad and provides to his isolation from the West, the Kremlin has stated it considers the warrant meaningless and vowed to not cooperate.
Mikhail Vinogradov, a political scientist who heads the St. Petersburg Politics Basis, a assume tank, stated Mr. Putin’s go to to Mariupol was probably a response to “the I.C.C. warrant and to the criticism that he doesn’t go to fight zones.”
The Kremlin careworn the spontaneity of the go to, presumably to counter current criticism that occasions with Mr. Putin are “too regulated,” in addition to to restrict the variety of individuals with consciousness of the preparations forward of time, Mr. Vinogradov stated.
On Monday, Mr. Putin will host Moscow’s most essential ally, China’s chief, Xi Jinping, giving the Russian chief a chance to reiterate a theme the Kremlin has emphasised for the reason that warfare’s begin: that worldwide assist for Ukraine is proscribed to Western nations.
China has stated the three-day go to by Mr. Xi provides Beijing a chance to push Mr. Putin into peace talks and has hinted {that a} name with Mr. Zelensky may comply with. However the US has warned that China is contemplating whether or not to offer Russia with weapons for the warfare as a part of a deepening relationship between the 2 nations. Beijing has rejected the accusation.
There was no quick remark about Mr. Putin’s go to to Mariupol from Mr. Zelensky, who has vowed to recapture all the territory misplaced to Russia, together with Crimea. Ukraine’s armed forces are anticipated to launch an offensive this spring, which some Ukrainian officers have stated may contain attempting to chop off Crimea from the land that Russia holds in Donbas by pushing south towards town of Melitopol.
Andrii Biedniakov, 35, a tv presenter from Mariupol who left town on a piece journey simply days earlier than the invasion, stated he was “livid” that Mr. Putin had visited “town he ruined.”
It was telling that Mr. Putin visited at evening, Mr. Biedniakov added, citing tv footage of displaying small teams of individuals greeting the Russian president. “If there are millions of individuals who welcome Russia,” he stated, “why did they solely present seven of them?”
Marc Santora contributed reporting.
