Putin visits military headquarters in Ukraine’s Kherson, Luhansk regions
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President Vladimir Putin has rarely visited parts of Ukraine under Russian control since the invasion 14 months ago.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin met his commanders in two regions of Ukraine that Moscow claims to have annexed, as Russian forces stepped up heavy artillery bombardments and air strikes on the devastated eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
The Kremlin said Mr Putin attended a military command meeting in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and visited a national guard headquarters in eastern Luhansk on Monday.
Mr Putin heard reports from commanders of the airborne forces and the Dnieper army group, as well as other senior officers who briefed him on the situation in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south.
Neither Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu nor Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov joined Mr Putin on his trip, as a security precaution, the Kremlin said.
A senior Ukrainian presidential aide, Mr Mykhailo Podolyak, took to Twitter to mock Mr Putin’s trip as a “special tour of the mass murders author in the occupied and ruined territories to enjoy the crimes of his minions for the last time”.
Russian troops retreated from Kherson, the regional capital, in November 2022, and have been reinforcing their positions on the opposite bank of the Dnipro river in anticipation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
While numerous Western leaders have made their way to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russian forces invaded 14 months ago, Mr Putin has rarely visited parts of Ukraine under Russian control.
In March, he visited Crimea – annexed by Russia in 2014 - and the south-eastern city of Mariupol in Donetsk region.
Fighting has raged in and around Bakhmut for months, with Ukrainian forces holding out despite regular claims by Russia to have taken the mining city.
“Currently, the enemy is increasing the activity of heavy artillery and the number of air strikes, turning the city into ruins,” the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Bakhmut’s capture could provide a stepping stone for Russia to advance on two bigger cities it has long coveted in the Donetsk region – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
The head of the Wagner mercenary group, which has spearheaded Russia’s attempt to take Bakhmut, said in April that its fighters controlled more than 80 per cent of the city. Ukraine’s military has denied this. REUTERS
