Vladimir Putin not welcome at French ceremony for 80th anniversary of D-day

France says Russia can be represented but president will not be invited because of war in Ukraine

Russia will be invited to send representatives to an international ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-day – but not Vladimir Putin, the French organisers have announced.

The Élysée is reported to have accepted that the country should be represented but said its leader is not welcome because of Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine.

“In view of the circumstances, President Putin will not be invited to take part in the commemorations of the Normandy landings,” the Liberation Mission organising committee said.

plz1,

Yeah, LOLing at this. He wouldn’t set foot in any country that participates in the ICC with an open international warrant out for his arrest. I think that whole thing is symbolic, though, since no host country is likely to risk open warfare with Russia by detaining their president, criminal charges notwithstanding.

Buelldozer,
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

I dunno, France actually might arrest him right now.

Buddahriffic,

Or would it go like Stalin when those who were present when he collapsed could have saved him but decided instead to do nothing?

I’d think that those who have enough power in Russia to launch a rescue war might decide instead they are better off without him. But it does depend on what kind of dead man switches he has set.

plz1,

There you go, giving us hope we don’t deserve.

Burgomaestre_paris,

Wow I’m sure he’s worried as fuck boi

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Russia had nothing to do with D-Day anyway.

maynarkh,

Technically, there were a lot of Russian and Mongolian conscripts volunteers serving in the Osttruppen on the German side.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I feel sorry for them if they had no choice, but I would suggest that the German side is not what is being memorialized in the ceremony.

tal, (edited )
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

Ehhhh…

So, Stalin had been pushing for it, in that a second front would reduce pressure on the Soviet Union. It’d also create more difficulties for the Axis; they’d have to have some of their forces a fair distance away, hard to reinforce a spot that runs into trouble. So he politically supported it.

The fighting on the Eastern Front wasn’t part of the D-Day landings as such, but in turn, it pulled Axis forces away from an area. The really risky part of an amphibious operation is before there’s an established beachhead – then the forces are very vulnerable. Limited retreat isn’t possible. An overall retreat is very difficult, rapid reinforcement isn’t easy. All of the supply line may be under fire. Much of the supply is on ships, which are vulnerable. A big part of making D-Day work was keeping major Axis counterattacks away until the beachhead had been enlarged enough that the landing areas weren’t at direct risk, and things like the paratrooper drops, subterfuge aimed at creating confusion, severing communications, and all that are all aimed at buying enough of a window to do that. Pressure elsewhere will help with that.

By the time that D-Day occurred, a lot of fighting had occurred on the Eastern Front. Had that not occurred, there would have been much larger Axis forces available to counterattack in Normandy.

D-Day wasn’t a Soviet operation, no. But Soviet actions did make it much more viable than would have otherwise been the case.

EDIT: Also, while the great bulk of Lend-Lease was towards the Soviet Union, there was also some amount of limited “reverse Lend-Lease”, where certain materials that were in short supply with the western Allies but readily-available in the Soviet Union were shipped back. That wasn’t specific to the D-Day landings, but they’ll have generally aided operations in the west.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#Reverse_Lend-lea…

Reverse Lend-Lease

Reverse Lend-Lease was the supply of equipment and services to the United States. Nearly $8 billion (equivalent to $124 billion today) worth of war material was provided to U.S. forces by its allies, 90% of this sum coming from the British Empire. Reciprocal contributions included the Austin K2/Y military ambulance, British aviation spark plugs used in B-17 Flying Fortresses, Canadian-made Fairmile launches used in anti-submarine warfare, Mosquito photo-reconnaissance aircraft, and Indian petroleum products. Australia and New Zealand supplied the bulk of foodstuffs to United States forces in the South Pacific.

Though diminutive in comparison, the Soviet Union supplied the United States with chrome and manganese ore, platinum, gold and wood.[citation needed]

Gork,

It was a missed opportunity for it to be called Esael-dneL.

Klear,

A more salient point is that Russia was one of the fucking instigators of WW2 and only ended on the winning side through political expedience.

Aux,

It was Britain and France who enabled Hitler and who ignored Polish warnings.

UlfKirsten,

Yes, but they didn’t invade Poland together with hitler. Slight difference there.

realitista,

Fools, invite him and then give him a free visit to The Hague.

ininewcrow,
@ininewcrow@lemmy.ca avatar

The DDay landing was the greatest war event for the Americans, British and Canadians but compared to what happened on the Eastern front, the Russians basically bled themselves and the Germans dry by the time the Allies started fighting again.

I have family that were part of the landings and war veterans that took part in the fighting later on and a couple that are buried in Belgium.

DDay is an amazing story but it shouldn’t be overshadowed by what the Russians and Eastern Europeans endured in the east for almost three years.

The reason I mention this is that to the Russians DDay is not as important a WW2 event to them as it is to us. Putin and Russia won’t be as disrespected as we would like to imagine because they have way more WW2 commemorative events that saw many more people die than they did on DDay.

saltesc,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/731226aa-ee3f-405f-ae5c-e734b7d0497d.jpeg

Yep. I imagine most nations on the Eastern Front see D-Day as “A group of Allies poked head through backyard doggy door and said, “Oi!” Day.”

Malek061,

The soviets owe their existence to the United States.

ininewcrow,
@ininewcrow@lemmy.ca avatar

The Allies owe their WW2 victory to the Russians

0xD,

Soviets* ;)

barsoap,

The Russians owe their WW2 victory myth to Ukraine.

Malek061,

Not at all. Moscow falls without American trucks, trains, airplanes, boots, clothes.

batmaniam,

Hollllllllly… I knew about the atrocities in China… But I didn’t understand the scale…

nova_ad_vitum,

If Hitler had mustered up just enough wisdom to realize that an invasion of the USSR would be disastrous and managed to contain his hatred of communism just enough to restrain himself from operation Barbarossa, he could likely have held most of Europe and a DDay type landing would have been unlikely to succeed. Nothing short of a nuclear bombardment of Europe would have dislodged them. One of the weirdest darkest historical hypotheticals. It’s amazing how much of history hinges on the personal flaws of specific leaders.

Aux,

There are archive tapes of Hitler explaining why Germany should invade Russia. Hitler was running out of oil and was sure that Stalin would block access.

frezik,

There’s also the fact that in some ways, it was about making sure the Russians didn’t take all of Europe. Italy was in Allied control by then, but the ways through the alps to the rest of Europe are choke points that are easily defended, and have known by military strategists since at least Roman times. If the Russians take Berlin and end Hitler, and France is still otherwise under German control, what then? Better go liberate France and as much of Germany as possible to make sure the Russians don’t get it.

GenEcon,

I personally think the role of the soviet union in WW2 is underappreciated, too! But thats my point: soviet union, not Russia! The majority of victims in WW2 where Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians, Poles, Belarusians and Lithuanians – the same countries now fighting Russia (except for Belarusia)!

Russia never was the good guy and Putin deserves nothing of the praise for the soviet unions role in WW2. Maybe invite the Poles, Ukrainians or Baltics insteac!

LodeMike,

Wouldn’t he get arrested?

Pilferjinx,

He most probably would now. During the first stage of the invasion, Macron was amenable to Putin and agreed to meet in person. He’s totally flipped 180 now though, knowing he got played like a damn fool for trusting him.

roguetrick,

Attempting to apply anything resembling personal values to Macron is an error.

Viking_Hippie,

If you look up “amoral opportunist” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Macron smiling as smugly as is humanly possible.

Enoril,

When the first stage of the invasion started, Macron was the president of Europe. So he had to play his role and present the view of the european leaders, even if it was not aligned with our internal views.

I don’t like him, didn’t vote for him the first time (2nd time i did vote for him to avoid marine le pen election, founded by russian banks btw…) but you can’t use his behavior (amenable), trying to avoid escalation, as “yeah i’m your buddy putin, go ahead” or "i totally trust you’.

Our head of intelligence was fired because HE didn’t present the invasion as realistic (based on normal logic it really silly)… but the whole intel community was fully aware of putin desires. President included. He knew Putin was playing with him. Everybody knew.

But he had to play his role, as EU leader at this time.

rayyy,

Unfortunately the average person struggles to understand a Tic-Tac-Toe aspect of politics let alone the two-dimensional chess of politics.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

In theory, that’s up to the French state.

In practice, Putin wouldn’t go to a state that wouldn’t agree to extend diplomatic immunity to him.

And France isn’t going to grant diplomatic immunity and violate it.

So there isn’t really a scenario where he’s going to go and then France is going to arrest him. Either France doesn’t grant diplomatic immunity and he doesn’t enter France, or France does grant diplomatic immunity and he passes through without issue.

Sterile_Technique,
@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

How much of a shitshow would it cause if France granted diplomatic immunity, and then the US carried out a special drone delivery operation?

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

How much of a shitshow would it cause if France granted diplomatic immunity, and then the US carried out a special drone delivery operation?

why using a drone? Take him to the Eifel tower, I mean it does not have windows but it gets the job done.

SomethingBurger,

“Hey, Vladimir, wanna go up ze Eiffel Tower?”

force,

the nondefenestrative nature of the structure saddens me

PlexSheep,

I mean, wouldn’t that be a direct strike against France? NCD would love this.

Sterile_Technique, (edited )
@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

It’s kinda like swatting a mosquito off your friend. Might startle them a bit at first, but once they see the intentions were good, they’ll understand.

Enoril,

Well US bases and operations (fligths etc) are not welcome here since general DeGaulle so they would be intercepted when entering our countrie borders.

maynarkh,

It would most likely mean the end of NATO, and potentially a lot of other US alliances. It would also make no sense, since the US could kill Putin in Russia if they really wanted to. They don’t want to because MAD.

Miaou,

“[WR - any%] Make France ally with Russia and invade Germany”

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