Russia’s Putin visits forces in occupied Ukraine regions as G7 condemns Belarus nuclear plan
- Putin attends military command meeting in his second trip to Russian-held territories since March
- G7 foreign ministers meeting in Japan say Russian plan for nuclear weapons in Belarus ‘unacceptable’
Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited security forces in parts of Ukraine that Russia says it annexed last year, as Group of Seven foreign ministers meeting in Japan condemned a Russian plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Moscow claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions but its forces are locked in a grinding artillery battle in the eastern Donbas with heavy losses on both sides, while they have been forced to pull back in southern Kherson, which Putin visited.
Dressed in a heavy blue jacket, Putin, 70, was shown on Russian state television descending from a military helicopter in Russian-held Ukraine and greeting senior military commanders. It was not stated when the visit took place.
The Kremlin said Putin attended a military command meeting in Kherson region. He heard reports from commanders of the airborne forces and the “Dnieper” army group and other senior officers on the situation in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, both of which Moscow has proclaimed part of Russia.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, called Putin’s trip “a ‘special tour’ of the mass murders’ author”, adding that he went to Ukraine’s occupied territories “to enjoy the crimes of his minions for the last time”.
Russian troops retreated from the city of Kherson in November and have been reinforcing their positions on the opposite bank of the Dnipro river in anticipation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.