For the first time since the start of the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin visited the Kherson and Luhansk regions in southern and eastern Ukraine respectively, the Kremlin announced. He went to meet the soldiers deployed there as part of the Russian offensive launched more than a year ago, on the occasion of the Orthodox Easter holiday, which was celebrated on Sunday.
However, the Kremlin does not specify the date of these trips. “The Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation visited the headquarters of the military grouping ‘Dnieper'” in the Kherson region, the statement said. Vladimir Putin was able to meet with the Commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, General Mikhail Teplinsky, and other senior military officials to discuss the situation in the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia, which Russia has claimed for annexation in last September.
Ukraine was quick to react, accusing Vladimir Putin of visiting the scene of his “crimes”. This trip “is a ‘special tour’ of the perpetrator of mass murder in the occupied and ravaged territories to take pleasure in the crimes” committed by the Russian forces, declared on Twitter Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency.
The evolution (degradation) of Putin is amazing. A year ago, the world was waiting for his statement. What will he say? What will he do? Today it doesn’t matter. There is no such political entity. There is a “special tour” of the author of mass murders in the occupied and destroyed territories. To finally enjoy the crimes of “their”.
In the Luhansk region, Vladimir Putin exchanged with the soldiers of the Russian National Guard staff deployed there, according to the Kremlin.
In March, Vladimir Putin had already made surprise visits to Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, and to Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city besieged for months and taken by the Russian army in May 2022.
