Moment fearless woman shouts 'It's all lies, it's all for show' at Putin in Mariupol

This is the moment a fearless Ukrainian woman shouted ‘It’s all lies, it’s all for show’ at Vladimir Putin during his visit to the occupied city of Mariupol on Sunday.

Video shows the brave Mariupol resident heckling the Russian leader as he put on a staged show of meeting supposedly grateful Ukrainian civilians in Mariupol. 

Risking arrest and the wrath of Putin’s security forces, the woman can be heard shouting: ‘It’s all lies, it’s all for show.’ 

The woman’s heckling, which appears to have come from a nearby building, prompts Putin’s security guards to begin frantically looking around to identify where the woman’s voice came from.

However, the security officials are unable to identify the brave Ukrainian woman.

A fearless Ukrainian woman defiantly shouted 'It's all lies, it's all for show' at Vladimir Putin during his visit to the occupied city of Mariupol

A fearless Ukrainian woman defiantly shouted ‘It’s all lies, it’s all for show’ at Vladimir Putin during his visit to the occupied city of Mariupol

Video shows the brave Mariupol resident heckling the Russian leader as he put on a staged show of meeting supposedly grateful Ukrainian civilians in Mariupol

Video shows the brave Mariupol resident heckling the Russian leader as he put on a staged show of meeting supposedly grateful Ukrainian civilians in Mariupol

In the video, Putin continued to speak to supposed Mariupol residents outside what looked like a newly built residential complex and asked them if they liked everyone.

Despite the heckling in the background, the ‘locals’ nodded vigorously and said that they lived in Mariupol, a southern Ukrainian city that was razed to the ground by invading Russian forces.

Putin’s visit to Mariupol marks the Russian despot’s first trip to the Ukrainian territory that Moscow illegally annexed in September.

He arrived in Mariupol late on Saturday after visiting Crimea, south-west of Mariupol, to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

Following Putin’s visit, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Sunday Putin had returned to view the city’s ‘graves’ after Mariupol faced some of the worst shelling seen during the invasion so far.

‘The criminal always returns to the crime scene… the murderer of thousands of Mariupol families came to admire the ruins of the city and (its) graves. Cynicism and lack of remorse,’ Podolyak said on Twitter.

Mariupol became a worldwide symbol of resistance after outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces held out in a steel mill there for nearly three months before Moscow finally took control of it in May. Much of the city was pounded to rubble by Russian shelling.

The timing of Putin’s ‘spontaneous’ visit to contested areas will raise concerns for the West, as they took place just days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader accusing him of war crimes.

Speaking to the state RIA-Novosti agency, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin made clear that Russia was in Mariupol to stay. He said the government hoped to finish the reconstruction of its blasted downtown by the end of the year.

‘People have started to return. When they saw that reconstruction is under way, people started actively returning,’ Mr Khusnullin told RIA.

When Moscow fully captured the city in May, an estimated 100,000 people remained, out of a prewar population of 450,000. Many were trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Relentless bombardment left rows of shattered or hollowed-out buildings.

Damaged buildings are being demolished by heavy duty machine as Russia-Ukraine war continues in Mariupol's Russian controlled territory, Ukraine on March 16

Damaged buildings are being demolished by heavy duty machine as Russia-Ukraine war continues in Mariupol’s Russian controlled territory, Ukraine on March 16

Damaged buildings are seen as Russia-Ukraine war continues in Mariupol's Russian controlled territory, Ukraine on March 16

Damaged buildings are seen as Russia-Ukraine war continues in Mariupol’s Russian controlled territory, Ukraine on March 16

Mariupol’s plight first came into international focus with a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital on March 9, 2022, less than two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine began.

A week later, about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theatre being used as the city’s largest bomb shelter. Evidence obtained by The Associated Press suggested the real death toll could be closer to 600.

A small group of Ukrainian fighters held out for 83 days in the sprawling Azovstal steel works in eastern Mariupol before surrendering, their dogged defence tying down Russian forces and coming to symbolise Ukrainian tenacity in the face of Moscow’s aggression.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal, and moved in September to officially claim four regions in Ukraine’s south and east as Russian territory, following referendums that Kyiv and the West described as a sham.

The ICC on Friday accused Putin of bearing personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.  UN investigators also said there was evidence for the forced transfer of ‘hundreds’ of Ukrainian children to Russia. 

According to Ukrainian government figures, over 16,000 children have been deported to Russian-controlled territories or Russia itself, many of them from Mariupol.

While the ICC’s move was welcomed by Kyiv, the chances of Mr Putin facing trial are slim because Moscow does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction or extradite its nationals.

Ukrainian officials reported on Sunday that at least three civilians had been killed and 19 wounded by Russian shelling in the previous 24 hours. The deaths were in the eastern Donetsk region, amid fierce battles for control of the city of Bakhmut, according to Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko on Ukrainian TV.

Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said in a Telegram update that a 51-year-old woman was ‘fighting for her life’ after being hit by shrapnel as Russian troops fired on the border town of Dvorichna.

Top Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said Ukrainian troops were holding the line near Bakhmut, a key target of a long, grinding Russian offensive, adding that the enemy’s plan to occupy the city ‘are now foundering’.

The spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces said Russian troops are ‘tactically unable to complete’ Bakhmut’s capture.

‘Yes, there are very active battles, (the Russians) continue to carry out several dozen attacks by inertia, but they suffer huge losses,’ Serhii Cherevaty said on Ukrainian TV, adding that Ukrainian defences are ‘bleeding the enemy, breaking his fighting spirit’.

Taking Bakhmut would give the Kremlin a battlefield victory after months of setbacks, and could pave the way for Russia to threaten other Ukrainian strongholds in the region, including Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Russian forces shelled a house in Bilozerka, a suburb west of the southern city of Kherson, and a woman who was pulled from the rubble was taken to hospital, according to the Kherson regional military administration, writing on Telegram.

source: dailymail.co.uk