Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Kherson and Luhansk regions, in southern and eastern Ukraine respectively, to meet with military personnel deployed there as part of the Russian operation launched more than a year ago, the Kremlin.

The announcement of the Russian presidency does not specify when this visit took place. However, it is noted that the Russian president greeted the military in the regions of Kherson and Luhansk on the occasion of the Orthodox Easter celebration the day before yesterday, Sunday, and offered them religious icons.

“The Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation went to the general staff of the military unit ‘Dniepr'” in the Kherson region, according to the statement.

This is Putin’s first visit to the Kherson region since the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in February 2022.

The Russian president met there with the commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, General Mikhail Teplinsky, and other high-ranking military officials to discuss the situation in the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia, which Russia announced it had annexed in September.

“It is important for me to know your point of view on the situation, to listen to you, to exchange information,” the Russian president said in a video broadcast by the Kremlin.

The Russian army withdrew from the city of Kherson, capital of the region of the same name, in November 2022 to deploy to the other bank of the Dnieper.

Putin also traveled to eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region, also in his first visit there, to meet with members of the Russian National Guard general staff deployed to the region, according to the Kremlin.

In March, Putin made surprise visits to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, and Mariupol, a major Ukrainian port that Russian forces had besieged for months and took control of in May 2022.