Vladimir Putin pays surprise visit to occupied Mariupol in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the occupied Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Saturday night in a show of defiance after the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for him on war crimes charges.

The Tass news agency said Putin flew by helicopter to Mariupol on Saturday and took a tour of the city, at times driving his own car. He visited several sites, spoke to residents and was presented with a report on reconstruction work in the city.

Russian state TV showed him visiting the Black Sea port city of Sevastopol, accompanied by the local Moscow-appointed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev.

When Moscow fully captured Mariupol in May, an estimated 100,000 people remained, out of a prewar population of 450,000. Many were trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Relentless bombardment left rows upon rows of shattered or hollowed-out buildings.

An adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the visit to the devastated city was tantamount to a perpetrator returning to the scene of the crime.

China last month proposed a 12-point peace plan for dealing with the war, though it did not address critical details such as whether Russian troops should withdraw.

But he will also want to demonstrate to the world that he can be a restraining force on Putin, for example by preventing him from deploying nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Additional reporting by Pjotr Sauer and Amy Hawkins