Russian President Vladimir Putin went to the Crimea on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of Moscow’s annexation of the Black Sea Peninsula from Ukraine, in defiance of an arrest warrant issued Friday by the International Criminal Court.
Putin was on an unannounced visit to the port city of Sevastopol accompany by Russian-appointed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev and visited a children’s school and an arts center.
“Our president Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin knows how to surprise. In a good way,” Razvozhayev said on Telegram France-Press agency.
“But Vladimir Vladimirovich came in person. Himself. Behind the wheel. Because on such a historic day, the president is always with Sevastopol and the people of Sevastopol,” said the Moscow-backed official.
Several European countries marked the anniversary by attacking Russia for illegally seizing the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.
“Nine years after the illegal annexation of Crimea, [United Kingdom] still standing with [Ukraine] against Russian Aggression”, British Embassy in Kiev tweeted. “Ukrainians suffer in Crimea: citizens are deprived of freedom, civilians are detained and children are in ‘re-education’ camps.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden he confirmed that it does not recognize the illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory by Russia.
“We will continue our unwavering support for Ukraine,” the ministry wrote on Twitter.
The provocative trip came just a day after the arrest warrant for Putin, the first in court against the leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, was issued.
The court accused Putin of committing war crimes, including the abduction of children from Ukraine, within 13 months of Russia’s bloody invasion of its neighbor.
The court also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, on the same charges.
Ukrainian officials cheered the announcement, which President Volodymyr Zelensky said reflected his nation’s own investigations.
He called the order historic, repeating his characterization of Putin as a terrorist head of a terrorist state.”
Russia, however, quickly rejected the order, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the warrant for Putin’s arrest issued by a Dutch court “invalid.” The chances of Putin actually appearing before the ICC are slim because Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and does not extradite its citizens.
The warrant also did nothing to quell the fighting between Moscow and Kiev, and Russia continued its series of attacks in the war-torn country on Friday and Saturday.
Ukraine’s Air Force Command wrote in Telegram that it shot down 11 of the 16 drones sent by Russia “in the central, western and eastern regions” on Friday evening, which targeted Kiev and the western Lviv region.
army of Ukraine wrote on Facebook early Saturday morning that Russia had carried out 34 airstrikes, one missile attack and 57 air strikes in the past 24 hours. The update noted that one of the attacks targeted a settlement in the Kherson region, which damaged seven houses and a kindergarten.
Separately, Turkey and the UN announced that a grain export deal between Ukraine and Russia, which was due to expire on Sunday, has been extended for at least 60 daysafter several days of talks supported by the Turkish government.
The two nations clashed over how long they wanted the deal to go on, with officials differing in their announcements regarding the latest extension.
Russia agreed to extend the deal for only 60 days, according to a letter from its UN representative shared by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakow he said an extension of 120 days was granted.
According to the UN, the grain deal, first signed in July after Russia invaded Ukraine and blocked the Black Sea, has allowed the distribution of more than 25 million tons of food, helping to lower global food prices and stabilize markets.
With postal wires