MOSCOW —
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that ignoring the Soviet Union's relation successful liberating Nazi German decease camps specified arsenic Auschwitz and not inviting surviving household members of Soviet troops to liberation anniversaries was a shameful act.
A commemoration to people 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz campy successful Poland by Soviet troops was attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Britain's King Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish President Andrzej Duda and galore different leaders.
Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, was not invited owed to the warfare successful Ukraine.
"This is specified a strange, shameful happening to do," Putin told Russian authorities tv successful an interrogation released connected Sunday.
"You tin dainty the caput of the Russian state, me, successful immoderate mode you privation - nary 1 is asking for immoderate invitation. But if you had thought astir it, you could person been a batch much subtle."
Putin said that if the Soviet soldiers who took portion successful the liberation of the camps could not beryllium invited owed to wellness oregon age, past astatine slightest their families could person been invited to the events marking the day of the liberation.
As Soviet forces pushed backmost Nazi troops successful Europe successful 1944 and 1945, they liberated a fig of decease camps including Majdanek, Auschwitz, Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück. U.S. troops liberated Buchenwald and different camps portion British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen and different camps.
More than 1.1 cardinal people, mostly Jews, perished astatine Auschwitz successful state chambers oregon from starvation, acold and disease. Poles, Roma and Sinti, and Soviet prisoners of warfare were besides killed there, according to the Auschwitz museum.
In all, betwixt 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered 6 cardinal Jews crossed German-occupied Europe. The 2nd largest radical of victims of Nazi radical argumentation aft the Jews were Soviet prisoners of war, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Other large groups killed included Soviet citizens, Poles, gypsies, intersexual minorities, disabled radical and others who offended Nazi ideas of radical superiority.
The International Criminal Court has ordered a warrant for Putin's apprehension for warfare crimes successful Ukraine. Russia denies the accusations which Moscow says were made up to smear its image.