Did Russia communicate President Vladimir Putin's planned Mariupol visit to Ukraine for deconfliction purposes?

Question

When US President Biden visited Kiev, it is thought that Russia was made aware of the visit ahead of time for purposes of deconfliction - for example to avoid a Russian attack on Kiev while unaware that they were putting a head of state at risk.

This is supported by CNN's Biden makes surprise visit to Ukraine

And it's interesting because, you know, the expectation had been that with the president here, it might be a quiet day. The Russians almost certainly already knew he was here. They'd be unlikely to do something like, you know, extraordinary, like launching a missile attack on this city while the president was here. But when we heard those air raid sirens, the first thing you want to find out is what type of threat has been reported. In this case, it was MiG activity over Belarus. That, again, is something that we have on an almost daily basis but it does take on pretty loaded significance when you have the president of the United States in a church in the center of town still, Miles, away from the next border, the next border being Poland...

And Wikipedia's 2023 visit by Joe Biden to Ukraine:

The White House stated the visit to an active warzone was unprecedented as the U.S. does not have a military presence in Ukraine, nor a significant diplomatic footprint in Kyiv.¹⁹ The visit was the first in modern history that a US leader has traveled into a war zone not under control of the US military.

¹⁹"U.S. alerted Russia to Biden's Ukraine visit for "deconfliction purposes," White House says". CBS News. February 20, 2023. Archived from the original on February 20, 2023.

The CBS News article quotes US national security adviser Jake Sullivan:

"We did notify the Russians that President Biden would be traveling to Kyiv," Sullivan told CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes. "We did so some hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes. And because of the sensitive nature of those communications, I won't get into how they responded or what the precise nature of our message was, but I can confirm that we provided that notification."

Now, CNN's Putin makes surprise visit to key city in Ukraine devastated by Russia shows footage of Putin driving a simple passenger automobile, said to be in Mariupol.

The image is notable because this automobile seems to offer virtually zero protection from anything from small arms to an RPG to a large kinetic weapon of the types being used routinely by both sides. Compare to "the beast".

Question: Did Russia communicate President Vladimir Putin's planned Mariupol visit to Ukraine for deconfliction purposes?

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Image supporting the question's premise that Putin has been reported to be driving in Mariupol in an ordinary passenger automobile in a war zone, making him particularly vulnerable:

Answer 1

Ukraine has very limited abilities to strike Mariupol. It's not in HIMARS range. For the same reason Kadyrov's sons went to the "front line" there, i.e. showed up at some training camp and fired some RPGs. (Even Kadyrov's daughter--who has a minister post--tagged along.) Ukraine's longer-range strike capabilities are limited to some Soviet-era drones, for now, like those they allegedly used on some Russian airfields, but that was more of a one-off attack.

So [frame challenge], there was probably not much concern on the Russian side with what Ukraine would do.

Answer 2

In fact, letting the Ukrainians know in advance might have the opposite effect.

Consider back in May 2022, when Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, made a visit to the front lines. Obviously, there's a difference between Gerasimov and Putin. But the difference isn't that big. Both are valid military targets and both are very important Kremlin officials.

As detailed by the New York Times:

Finally, in late April, the Russian chief of the general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, made secret plans to go himself.

American officials said they found out, but kept the information from the Ukrainians, worried they would strike. Killing General Gerasimov could sharply escalate the conflict, officials said, and while the Americans were committed to helping Ukraine, they didn’t want to set off a war between the United States and Russia.

Here, the concern seems to be that, if the U.S. directly provides intelligence that could be used to harm high-ranking Russian officials, it would be seen as a hostile act by Russia.

The Ukrainians learned of the general’s plans anyway, putting the Americans in a bind. After checking with the White House, senior American officials asked the Ukrainians to call off the attack. “We told them not to do it,” a senior American official said. “We were like, ‘Hey, that’s too much.’”

Notice the subtle shift here: the Ukrainians (supposedly) obtained the intelligence independently. Thus, there shouldn't be any way this implicates the United States, which was the reason why the Americans withheld it from Ukraine in the first place. Still, the U.S. is concerned about escalation.

The message arrived too late. Ukrainian military officials told the Americans that they had already launched their attack on the general's position. Dozens of Russians were killed in the strike, officials said. General Gerasimov wasn’t one of them.

Ukraine knew that a high-ranking Russian general was visiting the front (and in striking distance). Ukraine was also asked by the U.S. not to strike, but the message arrived too late (or perhaps it was simply "delayed" on the Ukrainian side). Still, the Ukrainians went ahead with the strike. We can conclude that they are not too concerned about escalation compared to the United States.

After all, they are already at war with Russia. Communication "for deconfliction purposes" only works if there's no conflict in the first place. Yes, Russia can still escalate in Ukraine: they do have nuclear weapons. But that's really it. According to Western sources they've already committed 97% of their conventional army.