Days after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a defiant visit to the city of Mariupol in his first trip to Ukrainian territory that Moscow illegally annexed in September.
Putin flew into the port city by helicopter and “traveled around several districts of the city,” the Kremlin said in a statement Sunday, adding that he met several residents and went into one family’s home after they invited him in.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said in a separate post on his Telegram channel that Putin “personally inspected one of the residential areas, the building of the Philharmonic Society and assessed the roads, driving a car around the city.”
