The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has visited the annexed peninsula of Crimea to mark nine years since Russia seized it.
Russian state TV showed a brief clip of a casually dressed Putin walking with a group of officials, and promised further details shortly, Reuters reports.
Russia seized Crimea in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine says it will fight to expel Russia from Crimea and all other territory that Russia has occupied in the year-long war.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said Putin visited an art school and a children’s centre. The locations appear to have been chosen in response to the international criminal court’s arrest warrant being issued on Friday. The warrant accuses him of being responsible for the abduction of children.
Putin took a plane to travel the 1,821 kilometres (1,132 miles) from Moscow to Sevastopol, the region’s largest city, where he took the wheel of the car that transported him around the city, according to its Moscow-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev. Along with the art school and children’s centre, Putin also visited the archaeological site at the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Chersonesos, according to Russian state media .
The ICC’s arrest warrant was the first issued against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN security council. The court, which is based in the Hague, the Netherlands, also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.
The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow – and welcomed by Ukraine as a major breakthrough. Its practical implications, however, could be limited as the chances of Putin facing trial at the ICC are highly unlikely because Moscow does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction or extradite its nationals.
Erdoğan did not say how long the extension had been for. The proposed length has differed between Russia, who called for it to be 60 days and Ukraine who wanted it to be renewed for twice that length.
Ukrainian infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, said the deal had been extended for 120 days. “The deal for the grain corridor was due to expire today. As a result of our talks with the two sides, we have secured an extension to this deal,” Erdoğan said in a speech in the western city of Çanakkale, Reuters reports.
Russian state TV showed a brief clip of a casually dressed Putin walking with a group of officials, and promised further details shortly, Reuters reports.
Russia seized Crimea in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine says it will fight to expel Russia from Crimea and all other territory that Russia has occupied in the year-long war.