MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the military headquarters in occupied parts of the eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, in his second visit to the region in several months.
Putin attended a military command meeting in the southern Kherson region where commanders of the airborne forces and the “Dnieper” army group as well as other senior officers briefed him on the situation there and in the Zaporizhia region.
The Russian president reportedly also visited the National Guard headquarters in the Luhansk region.
In a video released by Kremlin, Putin could be seen taking a helicopter to Luhansk.
Kremlin did not say when did these meetings take place.
Such trips by the Russian president are rare, although he made a surprise visit to the city of Mariupol in March.
Russia’s annexation of Kherson, Zaporizhia
Kherson and Zaporizhia are among the four Ukrainian regions Moscow annexed last September, although it did took full control of any of these areas.
In November, Moscow retreated from Kherson, the regional capital and the largest city captured since its February 2022 invasion. Russian forces have since been reinforcing their positions on the opposite bank of the Dnieper River amid threats of a renewed counteroffensive from Ukraine.
Intense fighting is currently underway between Russian and Ukrainian troops for control of eastern Bakhmut – once a salt mining centre but now in ruins.
