Putin visits occupied Mariupol days after international arrest warrant issued

Vladimir Putin has visited the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, days after the Russian leader was served an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes.

Mr Putin arrived by helicopter and visited several districts of the city, which was largely laid to waste by Russia last year and has been occupied by Moscow’s forces since May.

Mr Putin drove himself around the city’s memorial sites, concert hall and coastline, Russian news agencies said, without specifying when the visit took place.

He also met residents in the city’s Nevskyi district, according to the reports.

The trip was “spontaneous”, according to the Kremlin.

“It was all very spontaneous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“Movements around the city were not planned either,” nor was his meeting with local residents, he added.

Speaking to the state RIA agency on Sunday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnulin said Russia was in Mariupol to stay. He said the government hoped to finish the reconstruction of its downtown area by the end of the year.

“People have started to return. When they saw that reconstruction is under way, people started actively returning,” Mr Khusnulin told RIA.

The Kremlin said on Sunday Mr Putin had been on a “working trip” to the region.

It was his first visit to one of four Ukrainian regions Russia claimed in September to have annexed as part of its invasion in February 2022.

It came after Mr Putin arrived in Crimea on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the peninsula’s annexation and took place almost a year to the day after a Kremlin strike on a drama theatre there allegedly killed hundreds of civilians sheltering from air attack.

Amnesty International, in an investigation published in June, claimed the strike “a clear war crime” by Russian forces, saying the theatre “was clearly recognisable as a civilian object, perhaps more so than any other location in the city.”

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation and Europe (OSCE) said Russia’s bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol was also a war crime.

The capture of Mariupol in May was Russia’s first major victory after it failed to seize Kyiv and focused instead on south-eastern Ukraine.

An estimated 100,000 people remained at the time out of a prewar population of 450,000.

Many were trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Relentless bombardment left rows upon rows of shattered or hollowed-out buildings.

Ukraine estimates about 20,000 civilians were killed in the city, including those in the theatre bombing.

Black Sea deal

In Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to extend a deal that allows Ukraine, a major grain exporter, to resume exports after its Black Sea ports were blocked by Russian warships.

The agreement was renewed for at least 60 days – half the intended period – after Russia warned any further extension beyond mid-May would depend on the removal of some Western sanctions.

The deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in July had already been extended for 120 days in November.

Arrest Warrant

The ICC accused Mr Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.

While Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a number of trips to the battlefields to boost the morale of his troops and talk strategy, Mr Putin has largely remained in Russia.

In the Nevsky district of Mariupol, a new residential neighbourhood built by Russian military, Mr Putin visited a family in their home, Russian media reported.

“The head of state also examined the coastline of Mariupol in the area of the yacht club, the theatre building, memorable places of the city,” the Interfax agency said, quoting the Kremlin’s press service.

Mariupol is in the Donetsk region, one of the four Russia moved in September to annex.

Kyiv and its western allies said the move was illegal.

Donetsk, together with Luhansk region, comprise most of the Donbas industrialised part of Ukraine where the biggest battle in Europe for generations has been fought.

Updated: March 19, 2023, 11:43 AM