Putin will not attend Auschwitz memorial event
Lesson Brief
BBC Russian
Vladimir Putin will not attend an official ceremony in Poland marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz as he did not receive an invitation from the Polish government. The Kremlin has announced that Putin's schedule will not permit him to attend and that it is not typical for formal invitations to be issued to such events. It is speculated, however, that the Polish government did not want to spark public discontent over inviting Russia's head of state to the commemoration and thus declined to issue Putin a formal invitation.