Putin visits Mariupol at night and condemns: Criminals return to the scene

19.03.2023

On March 18, Putin visited the Crimean Peninsula occupied by Russia and Mariupol, the capital of the port of Udon. This was strongly condemned by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the adviser of the presidential palace. On the same day, Russia and Ukraine agreed to extend the Ukrainian grain export agreement again.

(Deutsche Welle Chinese Network) Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit on Sunday (March 18) to Mariupol, a port city in Udon, which is currently occupied by Russian troops, Putin’s first visit to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine .

In this regard, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak (Mykhaylo Podolyak) criticized him harshly on Twitter on the 19th local time.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said on Twitter: “Putin visited the Ukrainian city of Mariupol under the cover of night, which fits his identity as a thief. First of all, it is safer to do so (referring to the the dark night of a Visitation).Moreover, the night would not only allow him to show what he had to show, but also to hide from outside the prying eyes of the city which was completely destroyed by his armies , and its few surviving inhabitants.”

Podolyako, Ukraine’s presidential adviser, condemned: “Criminals always return to the scene of their crimes … The murderer of thousands of families came in Mariupol to admire the wreckage and graves of the city.”

When the Russia-Ukraine war broke out last year, there was a siege of Mariupol that lasted for several weeks, and in particular, the Azov Iron and Steel Works in the city once became the last stand of the Ukrainian defense forces.
According to the official Russian media TASS, Putin arrived in Mariupol by helicopter on the 18th, then changed to a car, explored different locations in the city and talked to residents. Local officials also presented him with an urban renewal report.

Earlier in the day, Putin made a surprise visit to the Crimean peninsula to commemorate nine years since Russia’s “restoration”. Television footage from Russian state media showed Putin in the city of Sevastopol accompanied by Mayor Razvozayev. The latter said on the Telegram social platform: “On this historic day, the President is always with the city of Sevastopol and the people of Sevastopol.”
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March 2014 in an illegal referendum. Neither Ukraine nor the vast majority of countries recognized the legitimacy of the referendum. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland at the beginning of this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said that he must recover Crimea, although Russia has always refused to discuss the Crimean issue.

Russia, Ukraine agree to extend grain export agreement

The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced on the same day that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to extend the Ukrainian grain export agreement. Merchant ships will continue to be able to load grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. However, the two sides apparently still disagree on details: Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said the deal had been extended by 120 days, but Russia’s foreign ministry said Russia had agreed to a 60-day extension.

The aim of the agreement reached in June 2022 mediated by Turkey and the United Nations is to ensure the security of grain export channels in Ukraine, an important grain producing country. The agreement has already been extended once in November 2022 for a period of 120 days.

At the moment, the battle lines between Russia and Ukraine are not on the Black Sea coast, but around the village of Bakhmut in Donetsk. Only on March 18, the Russian army airstrike Kramatorsk, a city near Bakhmut, killing 2 people and injuring 10 others.

(AFP, etc.)

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