Inside Putin’s shock tour of Mariupol ‘crime scene’

A day after he was charged with conflict crimes by the Worldwide Prison Courtroom, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s defiant midnight propaganda tour of Mariupol drew scathing criticism from Ukraine leaders, who famous “a legal all the time returns to the crime scene.”

Russian state media cherry picked optimistic response to the 70-year-old dictator’s go to to the decimated port metropolis, exhibiting Putin palling round with rehoused residents in his first journey to the frontlines of his nation’s 13-month lengthy unprovoked invasion.

Critics accused Putin of visiting Mariupol below the quilt of darkness to keep away from confronting the complete scope of the obliteration within the absolutely occupied japanese metropolis, the place about 90% of its buildings had been destroyed within the first months of the conflict. Ukraine estimates 20,000 residents had been killed and 70% of town’s inhabitants was pressured to flee amid Russia’s violent land seize.

“The legal all the time returns to the crime scene,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.

His sentiments had been echoed by Mariupol’s exiled mayor Vadym Boychenko.

“He has are available particular person to see what he has accomplished,” Boychenko advised the BBC. “He’s come to see what he will likely be punished for.”

On the bottom, a far rosier image was painted by Kremlin propaganda, as Putin was seen driving across the metropolis whereas being briefed on rebuilding efforts by Russian officers.

“Do you reside right here? Do you prefer it?” Putin was filmed asking folks.

“Very a lot. It’s a bit of piece of heaven that we now have right here now,” a girl replied, as she clasped her arms and thanked Putin for “the victory.”

“We have to begin attending to know one another higher,” Putin advised a bunch of surprised residents, in response to CNN.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin accompanied Putin on his spontaneous tour of the bombed out former European industrial heart.

“The downtown has been badly broken,” Khusnullin stated. “We wish to end (reconstruction) of the middle by the top of the 12 months, at the least the façade half. The middle could be very stunning.”

The duo additionally spoke of plans to construct a brand new hospital to switch the youngsters’s and maternity hospital bombed whereas sufferers and employees had been inside.

“There will likely be an ambulance, and all essentially the most fashionable laboratories will likely be there,” Khusnullin stated, in response to the report.

“Every little thing will likely be high quality,” Putin responds.

Putin’s defiant go to got here as his employees stated the arrest warrant issued by the ICC for allegedly abducting and deporting kids and different Ukrainians to Russia was “null and void” and “outrageous and unacceptable.”

The Could bombing of a Mariupol theater that housed sheltering households, killing a whole lot, was additionally tantamount to a conflict crime, human rights teams have stated.

Putin was topic to arrest if he stepped foot in any of the 123 nations which have signed off on the statute of The Hauge’s court docket.

The strongman traveled to Mariupol within the illegally annexed Donetsk area by helicopter after visiting Crimea on the ninth anniversary of its occupation by Russia, in response to state media.

With Submit wires