Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the occupied Donetsk region of the eastern Donbass on Tuesday, meeting wounded soldiers and assessing the battleground situation after his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin revealed, had toured eastern Ukraine on Monday.
Both heads of state made their voyages on the occasion of Orthodox Easter, the holiest day on the calendar for Orthodox Christians. Both Zelensky and Putin framed their visits, through their respective offices, as a way to thank their soldiers for their work on Easter and to assess the progress of the war.
Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, colonizing its southern Crimea region with little international response. Europe and the administration of President Joe Biden rapidly began prioritizing Ukraine as a foreign policy issue last year when Putin announced a “special operation” to oust Zelensky from power, branding the Jewish head of state a “Nazi” and rejecting the legitimacy of the 2019 presidential election that Zelensky, then considered a “pro-Russia” candidate, won. Neither Zelensky’s opponent in that war, the stridently anti-Putin Petro Poroshenko, nor any observers questioned Zelensky’s victory at the time of his election.
Since the beginning of the “special operation” in February 2022, Putin has “annexed” four more regions of Ukraine into Russia: Donetsk and Luhansk, the Donbass regions; and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Kyiv adamantly rejects the annexations and is demanding the full expulsion of Russian forces from those regions and Crimea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits headquarters of the Dneprâ army group to discuss the situation in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and meets senior officers at the headquarters of the Vostok National Guard during his visit to Ukraine’s Luhansk and Kherson regions on April 18, 2023. (Kremlin / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
While initially expected to be a short-term kinetic operation, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has slogged on into a second year with little progress for either party. The ongoing nature of the war has appeared to benefit Russia, which claims to be slowly gaining momentum in the highly contested city of Bakhmut. Ukrainian forces claim, however, that they have not ceded any significant territory in the region, boasting of downing a Russian drone in Bakhmut on Tuesday.
According to Zelensky’s office, the president began his Easter visit to the front lines in the Donetsk city of Avdiivka.
“I have the honor to be here today, to thank you for your service, for defending our land, Ukraine, our families,” Zelensky told the soldiers, honoring the dead with a moment of silence. “Congratulations on the holidays, on Easter, I wish you only victory – this is what I wish for every Ukrainian, this is what is very important to all of us. I wish good health to all of you and your families, and I am sincerely grateful on behalf of every Ukrainian for the great path that you overcome every day.”
The Ukrainian state outlet Ukrinform reported that Zelensky visited a hospital treating injured soldiers in Donetsk following his visit to Avdiivka.
The Kremlin revealed on Tuesday that Putin had come to the Ukrainian front lines a day before Zelensky, his second visit since entering Mariupol, in the occupied Donestk, to mark the anniversary of the colonization of Crimea in March. Putin reportedly visited Luhansk, the other half of Donbass bordering Donetsk, and the still-disputed region of Kherson, receiving news on the situation on the ground. According to the Kremlin press office, Putin briefly addressed soldiers in Kherson requesting “businesslike” updates.
“I don’t want to distract you from your direct responsibilities of managing the troops, so we’ll be working here in a businesslike manner, brief but concrete,” the Kremlin quoted Putin as saying. “It is important for me to hear your opinions on how the situation is developing, to listen to you and exchange information.”
Putin also reportedly wished the troops a happy Easter and gifted them religious icons to mark the occasion.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the visit as “the routine work of the commander-in-chief,” implying that the world should expect Putin in occupied Ukraine more often, as Moscow considers these regions part of Russia.
“Now the president visits the new regions more frequently, naturally, he inspects headquarters, receives operational information on the spot about the progress of the special military operation. This is vital for the commander-in-chief, this is how he works,” Peskov told reporters, according to the Russian Tass news agency.
The Associated Press noted that both Kherson and Luhansk are not under complete Russian control at press time. While Crimea has been almost entirely dominated by Russian forces since the 2014 takeover, the other four regions “annexed” in September are still seeing significant resistance and contain pockets of Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday visited front-line positions of the country’s military in the city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, one of the hot spots of the ongoing Moscow-Kyiv war. (Ukrainian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Putin’s presence in Kherson and Luhansk, however, signal to the international community that the Russian leader feels those territories are sufficiently subdued that it is safe for him to be present there.