Vladimir Putin has visited military command posts in occupied regions of Ukraine, the Kremlin said, a sign the Russian president retains his ambitions more than a year into his invasion of the country.
Putin visited troops in the Kherson and Luhansk regions and heard reports from field commanders, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, without immediately providing any footage of the trip.
If confirmed, the visit would mark Putin’s second trip to occupied Ukraine after he made a brief stop in March in Mariupol, a south-eastern city Russia essentially razed to the ground in the war’s early days.
Putin gave the troops in Kherson region, the site of a humiliating Russian retreat from the provincial capital last November, an icon he said was previously owned by a Tsarist defence minister, according to state newswire Ria Novosti.
