ISTANBUL
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday said not inviting Russia to events marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp was “shameful.”
“As for the invitation and non -invitation to similar occasions to the launch of Auschwitz, it is, of course, something like that and shameful,” Putin said in an interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin, from which an extract was shared on his account of telegram.
“You can have an attitude towards Russia’s policy, towards the Russian head of state, towards me, nobody asks an invitation. But if you think about it, you may have been much more subtly,” Putin said.
The Russian president argued that if it was no longer imaginable to invite Soviet infantry soldiers who released the camp due to their aptitude or age, their relatives may have been invited at least.
On January 27, a commemoration held to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the release of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where several world leaders were present, adding the German chancellor and the presidents of France, Poland and Ukraine.
The Auschwitz concentration camp, created through Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, liberated through Soviet forces on January 27, 1945.
The infamous camp one of the largest concentration centers, where 1. 1 million people were killed through the Nazi regime.
Now a Unesco World Heritage Site, changed to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in 1947, serving as a reminder of atrocities committed the Holocaust.
The UN adopted a resolution in 2005 to mark the date of Auschwitz’s liberation as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Russia has not been invited to participate in the annual occasions commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.