Putin visits two occupied regions in Ukraine, pushing illegal annexation [View all]
Source: Washinton Post
RIGA, Latvia, — Russian President Vladimir Putin made a secretive visit to the headquarters of his troops in the partially occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine where the Russian military in November was forced to retreat from the regional capital despite Putin’s audacious and illegal claim that the territory and its people had been annexed by Russia “forever.”
In a sign of the Kremlin’s acute concerns about security, the visit on Monday, which also included a stop in the occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, was not disclosed until Tuesday morning after Putin had departed Ukraine. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists Tuesday afternoon that the trip took place a day earlier
The trip was Putin’s second known visit to an area near the front lines since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and his first known visit to Luhansk since Russia began fomenting a bloody separatist war there in 2014.
Last month, Putin visited the occupied city of Mariupol, traveling under cover of darkness to tour the city, which Russia nearly destroyed in a siege last spring.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/18/vladimir-putin-kherson-visit-ukraine/
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