The Kremlin website has republished a video of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the inhabitants of Mariupol, in which a woman can be heard shouting off screen: “It’s not all true, it’s all for show!”. So drew attention telegram channel “We can explain.”
In the first version of the video, 27 minutes and 8 seconds long, released on March 19, Putin addresses residents of one of Mariupol’s new microdistricts. One of the men says he didn’t expect her to arrive, to which the president replies, “What a job.” As Putin asks residents if they like living in new houses, an unknown woman, who is not visible in frame, shouts: “That’s not true, it’s all for show!”. Putin does not react to this in any way and his guards look around.
As noted by Can Explain, the second version of the video, which job on the Kremlin website, “considerably cut across” and lasts 30 minutes and 52 seconds. In this version, Putin, just like in the original version, starts a conversation with local residents, but after the words “Such work” there is a collage – the cry of an unknown woman has been removed. Instead, there is a fragment in which a local resident says to Putin, “We are praying for you.”
State broadcasters and news agencies published footage from Putin’s March 19 trip to Mariupol. It was the president’s first trip to Donbass since the start of the military conflict with Ukraine. Judging by the video, Putin flew to the city by helicopter, then drove a car through several parts of the city, visited a theater hall, met with residents of the new Nevsky microdistrict and, at the at the invitation of one of the families, went to their home.
News agencies noted that the President also heard a report from Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin on restoration work in Mariupol and held a meeting at the “command post of a special military operation in Rostov-on-the -Don”.
On March 18, state channels also reported on Putin’s first trip to Crimea since the outbreak of hostilities. It was timed to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the peninsula’s annexation to Russia.