Vladimir Putin visits Crimea to mark 9 years since annexation as Ukraine grain deal prolonged | NEWSRUX

Russian president Vladimir Putin made a shock go to to Crimea on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine.

His journey got here a day after the Worldwide Felony Court docket issued an arrest warrant on costs of warfare crimes, alleging he bears private duty for the abductions of kids from Ukraine throughout Russia’s invasion that started almost 13 months in the past.

In Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest metropolis, Mr Putin met Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev, with whom he visited an artwork faculty and a kids’s centre which are a part of a undertaking to develop a historic park on the location of an historic Greek colony, Russian state information businesses stated.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in a transfer many of the world denounced as unlawful and which soured relations between Moscow and the West. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has stated any peace settlement would contain Russia withdrawing from the peninsula in addition to the areas it has occupied since final 12 months.

Mr Putin has proven no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin’s features. As a substitute, he confused on Friday the significance of holding Crimea.

“Clearly, safety points take high precedence for Crimea and Sevastopol now,” he stated. “We are going to do every little thing wanted to fend off any threats.”

The ICC’s arrest warrant was the primary issued in opposition to a frontrunner of one of many 5 everlasting members of the UN Safety Council. It was instantly dismissed by Moscow and welcomed by Ukraine as a serious breakthrough. However the possibilities of Mr Putin going through trial on the ICC are very slim as Moscow doesn’t recognise the court docket’s jurisdiction nor will it extradite Russian nationals.

In Ukraine, authorities reported widespread Russian assaults between Friday night time and Saturday morning, killing one particular person in Donetsk Oblast, the place Russia continues to pay attention the majority of its assaults on Bakhmut and different components of the jap industrial area.

The Ukrainian navy stated Moscow launched 34 airstrikes and one missile strike, whereas Kyiv’s air pressure command stated 11 out of 16 drones had been shot down throughout assaults that focused the capital, Kyiv, and the western Lviv province, amongst different areas.

Without end to hostilities, the United Nations and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan introduced {that a} wartime deal permitting grain to be shipped from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to nations in Africa, the Center East and Asia was prolonged, though neither stated for a way lengthy.

Ukraine stated the deal, which is linked to efforts to assist Russian meals and fertiliser exports, had been renewed for 120 days, the interval that Kyiv, mediator nation Turkey and the UN wished.

Nonetheless, Russian overseas ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated the agreed interval was solely 60 days after Russia warned any additional extension past mid-Might would rely upon the removing of some Western sanctions. Russia has complained its fertiliser will not be reaching international markets regardless of the deal.

Earlier, in an extra try and strengthen the Kremlin’s maintain on Russian discourse surrounding the warfare, Mr Putin signed a legislation that imposes heavy fines and jail phrases of as much as 15 years for discrediting or spreading deceptive details about volunteers or mercenaries combating in Ukraine. The Wagner Group of mercenaries has taken a key position in Ukraine and just lately launched a drive to recruit 30,000 extra troopers.

Extra reporting by Related Press