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

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.

  • @talEnglish
    5•2 months ago

    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.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#Reverse_Lend-lease

    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]