Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has visited the war-torn city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine, his ministry announced Monday, a year after Russian troops seized control and razed the city to the ground.
This visit comes as Russian troops approach Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine that has become the scene of the longest battle of Russian intervention in Ukraine.
The ministry said Shoigu, one of the top officials to visit eastern Ukraine, visited the devastated port city to oversee reconstruction.
Shoigu “inspected the defense ministry’s work to restore infrastructure in Donbass,” the ministry said, without specifying the time of the visit.
Shoigu visited a military-built medical center, a Ministry of Emergency Situations emergency room, and a newly built precinct with a dozen five-story residential buildings.
Russia launched a major offensive in Mariupol last year at the start of the war, destroying the Azovstal steel mill, the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces in the city.
Investigation teams associated with the Kremlin’s imprisoned opponent, Alexey Navalny, have reported that Defense Ministry officials are personally benefiting from reconstruction efforts in Mariupol.
The ministry’s announcement comes a day after it said Shoigu met Russian soldiers deployed to a “command post” in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s laborious effort to conquer Bakhmut was led by the Russian mercenary group Wagner.
The group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Kremlin ally, regularly criticizes the Defense Ministry in social media videos allegedly shot at the front.
Analysts say that while Bakhmut is one of the bloodiest battles of the war, any Russian capture of the salt-mining city of Moscow would provide little additional strategic advantage in the Donbass.
Source: DN
