Vladimir Putin is ‘seen driving’ around the Russian-occupied city in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin reportedly visited the The Russian-occupied city of Mariupol in Ukraine on Sunday.

Mariupol in the Donetsk region was captured by Russian forces after a bloody battle in May last year and has remained under the control of Moscow-based fighters ever since.

The Russian president was seen driving around the city as he visited several districts, according to the TASS news agency.

He is also said to have made stops along the way, speaking to residents.

Putin also met with top brass leading his military operation in Ukraine, state media reported today.

The chief, who faces an arrest warrant for war crimes, also met with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who is in charge of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The meeting took place at the command headquarters in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, TASS news agency reported.

This is the first such visit by the Russian president, who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, in the country after the conflict broke out in Europe and led to the displacement of millions, thousands of civilian deaths and several thousand injured.

A day earlier, Mr Putin made a surprise visit Crimea to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the annexation of the Black Sea Peninsula by Ukraine.

His trip to the war-torn nation came a day after the The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant with her charge war crimesclaiming to be personally responsible for kidnapping children from Ukraine after Russia invaded.

In Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city, Mr Putin met Governor Mikhail Razvozaev, with whom he visited an art school and a children’s center that are part of a project to develop a historical park on the site of an ancient Greek colony, in the Russian state. the news agencies reported.

“Our president knows how to surprise. In a good way. Today we were supposed to open an art school for children. Everything was ready for teleconferencing and reporting to the president via a special communication link. In the end, the president came in person. With the car. He was at the wheel himself. On such a historic day, the president is always with Sevastopol and the people of Sevastopol. Our country has an incredible leader,” Governor Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram.

Russia was annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in a move that most of the world denounced as illegal and which strained relations between Moscow and the West. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace settlement would involve Russia withdrawing from the peninsula as well as from areas it has seized since last year.