Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the streets of occupied Mariupol driving himself, while listening carefully to the words of his co-pilot, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Jusnulin. “The city center has been damaged, part of the buildings are historical monuments and we were thinking whether to demolish them or not. Let’s go see it,” Jusnulin said.

During the night, the president supervised the reconstruction of a city ​​razed by his own troops. The first stop was at a children’s playground and the second at a residential building complex, where he supervised plans and some supposedly excited neighbors approached him to tell him that he had created “a piece of paradise.” “We will expand it,” replied the Russian leader, after which neighbors invited him to enter their homes. In the video you can see what Mariupol was like before and how it was left after more than two months of siege, before it fell in April 2022.

Putin also had time to visit the renovated Philharmonic of the city, a building located just 900 meters from the famous Mariupol Theater, bombed with 300 civilians inside despite the fact that the word “children” could be read on the ceiling.

After finishing his tour of the annexed territory, Putin went by helicopter to Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, where he was received by high-ranking officers during his visit to his military headquarters. The images have been released by the Kremlin itself, a clear communication strategy showing him as a savior, just three days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him.

This Saturday, Putin made a surprise trip to the Crimea on the ninth anniversary of its annexation by Russia. The president visited the Korsun Art School and children’s center in Chersonesus, on the outskirts of the port of Sevastopol, the main base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.