PARIS: Russia will not be invited to events marking the 80th anniversary of the Second World War’s D-Day landings next week.
Organisers had said in April that President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t be invited to the events in France, but some Russian representatives would be welcome in recognition of the country’s war-time sacrifices.
💬 #Zakharova: Today in the West, the Allied landing in Normandy is presented as the main event that decided the outcome of the #WWII.
❌ Of course, nothing is said in the West about the fact that no D-Day would have been possible without the Red Army’s success. pic.twitter.com/pIoXdw4HHq
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) May 30, 2024
But sources said no Russian officials at all will now be invited to the commemorations that will be attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Joe Biden.
“When there’s a person, there’s a problem. When there’s no person, there’s no problem,” said a diplomatic source quoting Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
Three other EU diplomats told Reuters earlier that several member states had expressed unease over the possibility of Russia attending given the events in Ukraine.
More than 150,000 allied troops launched the air, sea and land D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, an operation that ultimately led to the liberation of western Europe from Nazi Germany.
The Soviet Union lost more than 25 million lives in what it calls the Great Patriotic War. Moscow under Putin marks the event with a massive annual military parade on Red Square.
Russians officials have attended D-Day ceremonies in the past. During the 70th anniversary events in 2014, Putin and the leaders of France, Germany and Ukraine set up the so-called Normandy format. This was a contact group aimed at resolving the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, at that point focused on the Donbass and Crimea regions.
(REUTERS)
