Ukraine tensions keep Putin away from Auschwitz anniversary

Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to join world leaders gathering at the site of the Auschwitz death camp this month because distrust caused by the conflict in Ukraine has cast a pall on arrangements to commemorate the Holocaust.

 

The Nazi camp where about 1.5 million people were killed, most of them Jews, became a symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust and a war that ravaged Europe. Seventy years later, conflict and political division are hampering preparations to mark the anniversary of its liberation.

 

Host country Poland – one of the most vociferous critics of Moscow over the Ukraine crisis – did not send a full diplomatic invitation to Putin, wary of the domestic political consequences of inviting the Russian leader, according to sources briefed on arrangements for the Jan. 27 event.

 

Read More: Ukraine tensions keep Putin away from Auschwitz anniversary – Diaspora – Jerusalem Post