Putin goes to Kherson

So Vladimir Putin and Volodymir Zelensky, hated enemies, were on the same soil today. Putin arrived by helicopter in the Kherson region in the south and then in eastern Ukraine to chat with commanders and troops. How Zelensky would love to have been tipped off by US intelligence about Putin's planned visit. But the US is careful with its intelligence. Even if it was known that Putin was planning a trip to Ukraine there is no way Zelensky would have been told. It's illegal for the US to target an elected head of state. So Putin was quite safe and well surrounded by Russian troops. It was claimed last May tht General Valery Gerasimov, the Russian chief of the general staff then and now also the overall commander for the war in Ukraine, was injured by shrapnel when he visited Kharkiv in the northeast. He supposedly suffered a wound in his leg and it was spread about that he had been deliberately targeted. But that seems unlikely. However, it was notable that when Putin arrived in Ukraine today he was not accompanied by either Gerasimov or Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister. The Kremlin cited security reasons. You can imagine the Kremlin conversation. Going to a war zone is a risky business and Putin's security people would have advised against having all three VIPs in Ukraine at the same time. Hopefully Putin will have come away from his trip with some pretty sobering thoughts about the way his "special operation" in Ukraine is going.