Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday made an unannounced visit to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, a city in the Donetsk region that had more than 400,000 residents prior to the war but now has fewer than 100,000 people in it, the New York Times reports.
An early target of the Russian military following the February invasion, Mariupol held out for more than three months before the remaining Ukrainian defenders, holed up in a massive steel mill, surrendered at the end of May. Putin’s visit to the city came days after he was indicted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court for ordering Ukrainian children kidnapped to Russia.