“However, Russia will be invited to be represented so that the significance of the determination and sacrifice of the Soviet people and their contribution to the victory of 1945 can be honored,” the association said. It has not yet given any further details on what level of representation Russia might have at these commemorations in Normandy.
The landing of Allied troops in Normandy on June 6, 1944 was one of the key events of World War II. After the breakthrough events of the previous year on the Eastern Front, the Red Army at that time continued to push the Germans out of Soviet territory, and the Western Allies, who had landed in Sicily and southern Italy in the summer of 1943, reached Rome. It was not until the invasion of France, however, that the main part of the Western Front was opened up, directly threatening Nazi Germany’s dominion over the whole of Europe.
Putin he was invited to the 70th anniversary celebrations of the landings in June 2014, despite the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea three months earlier, in recognition of the high price Russia paid in the fight against Nazism. Putin and his then-Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko spoke here for the first time at the height of the pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine, of which the West accused Moscow of inciting and directly organizing. Czech President Miloš Zeman also arrived at that time.
A meeting attended by former French President François Hollande and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, paved the way for talks with the participation of these four countries in the so-called Normandy format in an attempt to find a way out of the Ukrainian crisis. These negotiations continued until Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
On the other hand, Putin was not invited to the 75th anniversary of the so-called D-Day in 2019, when the situation in eastern Ukraine stalled and relations with the West were already considerably strained. At the time, he said it was “absolutely not a problem”.
The spokesman of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said today that Nobody officially informed Putin about the decision, but according to him, the biggest celebrations take place on May 9 in Moscow, when Russia celebrates the end of World War II.
US President Joe Biden is also expected to attend the highly symbolic anniversary of the Normandy landings. His predecessor Donald Trump also made the trip to Normandy for the 75th anniversary in 2019, as did Barack Obama in the year 2014.
