A Ukrainian official compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler for visiting the scene of his crimes in Mariupol, one of the cities in Ukraine that has been badly damaged since the war began last February.
“Another dictator also visited Mariupol once. We know how his story ended. Hitler visited Army Group South headquarters in Mariupol, Ukraine, in December 1941. “Many historians and contemporaries claim that it was here that Hitler first realized that the war was lost” – WarHistoryOnline,” wrote Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Interior Minister of Ukraine, on Twitter on Sunday.
Mariupol, a strategic seaport along the Sea of Azov, was seized during the Nazi occupation of Soviet Ukraine in World War II from 1941 to 1943. The city was badly damaged at this time when Nazi Germany also invaded Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg. and killed up to 1 million Russians, prevented citizens from leaving and starved hundreds of thousands, according to a report by the US Embassy in Georgia last April.
Eighty years have passed since the Nazi occupation of Mariupol, but the city has once again endured similar abuses when Putin’s forces launched heavy offensives last year, leaving thousands of residents without food, water and utilities.
Allegations of war crimes have centered on Mariupol, which fell to Russia last May, where a drama theater housing women and children was bombed by Russian artillery early in the invasion. Outside the theater, the words “Children” were painted in Russian on each end.
Meanwhile, Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov said at the time that up to 1,200 people had taken refuge in the theater. Some women and children managed to escape, but hundreds died.
Putin visited the city on Saturday, a day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him on alleged war crimes charges. During a city tour, the Russian president was briefed on the reconstruction effort by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, Reuters reported, citing state television.
The Russian President also visited Crimea on Saturday to celebrate the ninth anniversary of its annexation by Ukraine. The eastern European peninsula has also been the scene of alleged crimes by the Russian Federation for its involvement in human rights abuses and a crackdown on dissent in Crimea, according to Amnesty International, an international human rights organization.
“The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. When the civilized world announces the arrest of the “War Director” (VV Putin) in case of exceeding its borders, the murderer of thousands of Mariupol families came to admire the city’s ruins & graves . Cynicism and lack of remorse,” Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tweeted on Sunday.
Putin has been charged by the ICC with unlawfully abducting Ukrainian children and youth and transporting them to Russia, where many have been adopted by Russian families. An arrest warrant was also issued for Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova.
It’s unlikely that Putin will be indicted while he’s still in power, but experts still see the ICC’s arrest warrant as a positive step. It is also uncertain that the Russian leaders would be tried under international law, as the ICC relies on member states to conduct arrests and the accused could easily avoid traveling to countries where they could be extradited.
In addition, fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces has spread to major Ukrainian cities, including Kiev and Odessa, and recently intensified in Bakhmut.
news week emailed the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.
