PARIS — Russia will not be invited to the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings after all, the French presidency announced Thursday after talks of a Russian presence at the event stoked tensions between France and allied nations.
“These are not the right conditions for [Russia] to be included, given the war of aggression launched in 2022, which has only intensified in recent weeks,” an Elysée official told reporters.
Last month, D-Day organizers said that President Vladimir Putin would not be invited but that there were plans for some Russian representation to attend given the country’s historic role in the war. Officials from the United Kingdom, the United States and two other World War II allies expressed concerns over the move, with some saying they were caught off-guard, as first reported by POLITICO.
Putin took part in commemorations for the 60th D-Day anniversary in 2004, and again 10 years later for the 70th anniversary, shortly after he illegally annexed Crimea.
Russia’s past presence at D-Day events had been explained by the importance of the Soviet Union’s effort in fighting the Nazis and ending World War II on the Eastern Front, but France’s Western allies — notably in the U.K. and U.S. — were concerned about the symbolic resonance and diplomatic optics at stake in inviting representatives from Moscow while Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on.
“To be perfectly clear, we have always paid tribute to the action of the Red Army, to its decisive contribution to the final victory against Nazism,” the French presidency said, stressing the participation of soldiers from all former Soviet nations and not just Russia. “We will do so again in 2024 as part of the commemorations … through gestures and as part of the program of the D-Day commemoration ceremony.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the other hand, will be in attendance at the commemorations in Normandy to underline “how the landings resonate with the just struggle that the Ukrainian nation is waging today.”
The post France U-turns on inviting Russia to D-Day memorial ceremony appeared first on Politico.
