Vladimir Putin, 70, is said to have been on a trip to Ukraine – but when did that actually happen? And why weren’t the defense chiefs involved?

It is among the many questions being asked in the Russian and foreign media after the Kremlin announced on Tuesday that President Putin was at the front in Kherson and Luhansk.

• The Kremlin said the visit took place on Monday. This was later repeated by Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
• On the other hand, the mighty journalists believe that the visit must be before Russian Easter – which was last Sunday.
• Did he come by helicopter or in a motorcade where all the cars had Moscow plates?
• “It turns out that in one day, according to the Kremlin version, the president visited several regions at the same time, hundreds of kilometers apart,” he writes. an agency Very expressive.

The reason that Agenstvo and other media believe Putin was on a trip to Ukraine already before Orthodox Easter is because Putin in a video posted on Kremlin sites So:

It’s Easter, right?

This sentence has since been removed from the video.

The first Easter in the Orthodox Church this year was on Sunday, April 16th. On the night of April 16, Putin attended Easter services at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the heart of Moscow.

When confronted, Putin’s spokesman Peskov reiterated that Putin’s visit took place on Monday, April 17.

– That was yesterday. Yes, the boss said we have Easter. But the truth is, we celebrate Easter for 40 days, Peskov said Medusa.

– So this is just wrong. They took advantage of this sentence and immediately made non-existent hypotheses. This trip took place yesterday, says Peskov – thus we are talking about Monday.

BBC Russian edition He goes further in casting doubt on the facts surrounding Putin’s trip:

– Either on Monday, or last week, Vladimir Putin visited the village of Stjastlivtsevo near Genitsysk in the Kherson region, where he either flew by helicopter, or arrived in a motorcade, where all the cars had number plates in Moscow, then in Luhansk, the BBC writes.

They also wonder what happened to the military leaders Putin met with. This applies, among others, to Alexander Lapin, who is blamed for Russia’s defeat at Kherson last September and later disappeared from the radar—without being given exactly why—but has now met Putin at the front.

For many, it was also a surprise that he met General Mikhail Teplinskij as the commander of the Air Combat Forces. Rumors circulated that he had been fired. Putin’s spokesman wrote, denying this Moskovsky Komsomolets.

And on Sunday evening, Putin met with the Chinese defense minister in the Kremlin. According to the BBC and palm Then he met Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in the Kremlin on Monday — the same day he was around Ukraine.

– Most likely, the video was actually filmed a few days ago, and Putin’s words about the approaching Easter were not reserved, writes the Russian version of the BBC and reports that “the Kremlin video leaves more questions than answers.”

Russian media asked Peskov’s spokesman why Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Defense Staff Valery Gerasimov were not with Putin’s Ukraine. The answer, according to Izvestija, is just that “It would be too risky.”

Almost a month ago, Vladimir Putin went to the newly occupied lands of Ukraine for the first time. At that time he was in MariupolWhich is located on the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov.