Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise trip on Saturday to Mariupol, a Ukrainian city his forces captured last year.

Reports say Putin flew in by helicopter. Video from Russian media showed Putin driving a car through after dark, visiting buildings, and meeting with residents.

Russian state news service TASS said it was Putin’s first-ever visit to Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine, and while there, he received a report from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin about efforts to rebuild the port city within the eastern region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a surprise visit to the devastated city of Mariupol. This is his first visit to the partly-captured Donbas region of eastern Ukraine since Moscow's 2022 invasion. pic.twitter.com/D7AFwv6MHF

— DW News (@dwnews) March 19, 2023

“In particular, the report concerned the construction of new residential districts, social and educational facilities, utility infrastructure and medical centers,” said the Kremlin press service.

Word of Putin’s visit came about one day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in particular the abduction of children.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, chastised Putin in a post to Twitter.

“The criminal always returns to the crime scene,” said. “As the civilized world announces the arrest of the ‘war director’ (VV Putin) in case of crossing its borders, the murderer of thousands of Mariupol families came to admire the ruins of the city & graves. Cynicism & lack of remorse.”

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Russia began what it called a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, in an ongoing conflict that has led to tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions of people.

Early on in the fight, Moscow’s forces managed to seize roughly a quarter of Ukraine, but the Ukrainians have been able to fend off their advance with the support of a coalition of countries led by the United States that has sent Ukraine billions of dollars of lethal aid and levied waves of sanctions against Russia.

Multiple media reports have characterized Mariupol, which is located in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance as it was the site of fierce fighting during the early months of the war and the site of particularly visceral devastation, including a bombed-out maternity hospital.

Russian forces seized control of Mariupol in May after defeating Ukrainian fighters who were holding out in a steel plant.

Putin signed off on the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, including Donetsk, in October. Shortly after, the United Nations overwhelmingly approved a resolution demanding Moscow reverse course on its “attempted illegal annexation.”

Former Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe sat down with Ben Shapiro on this week’s episode of “The Sunday Special,” discussing how he plans on outsourcing undercover operatives equipped with hidden cameras in order to decentralize journalism.

“What I’m trying to do is get information into the hands of the citizens so that they make the best decisions to elect the right representatives,” O’Keefe said. “I actually believe that if people had any idea what was actually going on — in the three letter agencies and the schools — then they would be rightfully outraged.”

O’Keefe announced his resignation from Project Veritas last month after a conflict with the board of directors from the investigative journalism group he founded over ten years ago. Weeks after the company ousted the guerrilla journalist, he launched O’Keefe Media Group, a new business venture promising to be surrounded by “the most elite journalists in the world.”

His ouster from the company came after the group broke a story in which Pfizer’s Director of Research and Development admitted the pharmaceutical company was apparently conducting “directed evolution” research on SARS-CoV-2.

Project Veritas’ board of directors said they wanted to fix things with O’Keefe, but he would not have contact with them after an incident unfolded in February. The board of directors alleged that O’Keefe misspent large sums of donor money and that he broke the organization’s bylaws with his actions.

“I never really figured out what exactly happened, but it’s important for me to continue my mission,” he said.

That mission with the new media group, O’Keefe said, involves “getting little cameras into the hands of 1000s of people and helping everyone be a journalist.”

“The mission is to teach people about journalism ethics … technology … and recording laws in various states — I intend to open-source all of that on the website,” he said, which has not yet become available to the public.

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Under O’Keefe’s leadership, Project Veritas broke several major stories through sting operations and whistleblowers — a style of journalism that critics have called deceptive.

O’Keefe, on the other hand, decried much of the criticism, which supporters of the abrasive form of journalism say is only viewed as controversial when it doesn’t support left-wing purposes.

“It’s not about the methods,” he said. “It’s about whose ox you’re perceived to be goring — it’s all about politics, and it’s all about power.”

“I want to teach people how to do it themselves so that I don’t have to curate it,” he said at the time of the O’Keefe Media Group announcement. “And if that vision comes to life, I think that could change the world.”

Ryan Saveedra contributed to this report.