(CNN) Vladimir Putin visited Russian-held Mariupol, in an apparently defiant move reported by the Kremlin just days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him.
Putin was flown to Mariupol by helicopter and toured the districts around the city in a car, according to a Kremlin statement released on Sunday.
It said the Russian leader stopped to speak with residents in the city’s Nevsky neighborhood and claimed he had been invited to a resident’s home. It did not explain when the visit took place.
News of the visit comes after the ICC issued arrest warrants on Friday for Putin and Russian official Maria Lvova-Belova for an alleged plot to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.
The visit is likely to be seen as particularly inflammatory by Ukrainians as Mariupol has long been a symbol of resistance which has witnessed some of the worst fighting since Russia launched its invasion last year.
The Kremlin said Putin also inspected the Mariupol beach, visiting a yacht club and theater building.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin spoke in detail with Putin about the “continuous construction and restoration work” in the city.
The Kremlin added that Putin held a meeting at the command post of the special military operation in Rostov-on-Don.
Putin heard reports from the Chief of the General Staff — First Deputy Minister of Defense Valery Gerasimov, and several military leaders, the statement continued.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, is located in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast and has been under direct Russian control since May 2022.
It was in Mariupol that Russian forces carried out some of their most notorious strikes, including an attack on a maternity ward in March and the bombing of a theater that forced hundreds of civilians to take refuge .
Mariupol became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance during weeks of relentless Russian attacks last year. Famously, although most of the city fell, its defenders remained at the Azovstal steel plant for weeks before the fortress fell.
Defense analysts previously told CNN that Russian forces were trying to flatten Mariupol to make the city “easier to control.”
Of the 450,000 people who lived in the city before the war, more than a third have left.
