The Russian head of state paid an unannounced visit to the port city of Sevastopol, the home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Russian television reported on Saturday. There, accompanied by the local governor Mikhail Rasvozhayev, he attended an art school, as shown by the Rossia-1 channel.
“Our President Vladimir Vladimirovich knows how to surprise. In the truest sense of the word,” Razvozhayev explained in the online service Telegram. Actually, Putin wanted to take part in the inauguration of the art school for children via video conference. “But Vladimir Vladimirovich came personally. Steering. Because on such a historic day as today, he is always with Sevastopol and its people.” The Ukrainian peninsula was incorporated into Russia’s own territory in 2014 after a controversial referendum that the government in Kiev and the West consider illegal.
Austria’s commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is unshakable, tweeted Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP). “Crimea is Ukraine. Just like Donetsk, Cherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia,” Schallenberg posted on Saturday afternoon.
In Moscow, to mark the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, pro-Kremlin activists demonstrated in front of the embassies of 20 countries classified as “unfriendly”, including Germany, the USA, Great Britain and Poland. These “support Ukraine (…) and actively supply deadly weapons to the Ukrainian regime”, declared the youth movement “Molodaja gwardia” (“Young Guard”).