President Donald Trump will not be attending the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on May 9th, according to the Kremlin.
“Via diplomatic channels, we have received information that the president will not be coming,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday, according to Russia’s state-run news agency Tass.
This year’s Victory Day parade will mark the 75th anniversary of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany.
Putin said in an interview on Tuesday that world leaders who considered themselves members of the “anti-Hitler” alliance should attend the parade.
“[T]he right thing to do would be to attend, from both a domestic political stance and a moral one,” Putin said to Tass, according to the Associated Press. “We look forward to seeing them and we will be glad if they come. If not, well, that’s their choice. But I think that would be a mistake for them.”
Trump indicated in November 2019 that he was considering the invitation from Putin.
“It’s a very big deal, celebrating the end of the war,” Trump told reporters. “I appreciate the invitation, it’s right in the middle of the political season.”
Western leaders boycotted attending the parade in 2015 and in recent years in protest of Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine.
But Putin has dismissed the protest from Western leaders.
“We are celebrating our holiday. This is our holiday. We pay respect to the generation of victors,” he said in 2015.