Agency Report –
The German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, has excluded the ambassadors of Russia and Belarus from its central ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II on May 8.
The decision follows a recommendation from the German Foreign Office advising against inviting representatives of the two countries amid a tense debate over the participation of Russian officials in state events during the war in Ukraine.
Although the entire diplomatic corps was formally invited, the Bundestag said it had followed standard protocol in deferring to the federal government’s guidance. “This assessment led to, among others, the ambassadors of the Russian Federation and Belarus not being invited,” a spokesperson told dpa.
Russian ambassador attends WWII memorial outside Berlin
On Wednesday, Moscow’s ambassador to Germany, Sergey Nechayev, attended a memorial outside Berlin.
The silent commemoration in the German state of Brandenburg near Berlin remembered the Battle of Seelow Heights, considered the largest battle on German soil during World War II.
It was fought shortly before the war ended and left tens of thousands of soldiers on both the German and Soviet sides dead.
The event had stirred political divisions after the German Foreign Office issued its handout advising against inviting Russian representatives – a move which state lawmakers in Brandenburg said dishonoured fallen Soviet soldiers.
According to the local administration, Russian representatives were not actively invited, but Nechayev was also not prevented from attending and was instead welcomed politely.
The Belarusian envoy to Germany, Andrei Shuplyak, also took part in the commemoration.
Nechayev expressed regret over the exclusion of Russian representatives from the event.
“The considerations of the immediate political situation must not take precedence over the questions of historical memory and the historical reconciliation of the peoples of our countries,” he told the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia.
Ukrainian ambassador calls attendance mockery of victims
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, criticized Nechayev’s appearance and the fact that he wore a St George’s ribbon – originally a Soviet World War II symbol that has increasingly come to signify support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies.
Makeiev said the appearance was a mockery of victims from both World War II and today, pointing to recent Russian strikes in Kryvyi Rih and Sumy that killed 55 civilians, including 11 children.
The Foreign Office recommendation, seen by dpa, said Russian and Belarusian representatives should not be invited to commemorations by the federal, state and local governments.
The office wants to prevent Russia from instrumentalizing World War II to justify its war against Ukraine.
“It is to be expected from the Russian side that it will be exploited and improperly associated with the justification of its war of aggression against Ukraine,” a Foreign Office spokesman said.
Members of Brandenburg’s state government, which is led by the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), had previously expressed outrage at the Foreign Office suggestion.
“It is a diplomatic – to put it cautiously – not very friendly act towards the descendants of the people buried here,” BSW parliamentary group leader Niels-Olaf Lüders said.
“To want to forbid them to go to the graves of their ancestors is absolutely unacceptable,” he said.
SPD member of the state parliament, Sina Schönbrunn, called the Foreign Office’s recommendation “absurd.”
“Of course everything can be exploited, but for us today it should be above all about commemorating the dead,” she told German radio station rbb inforadio.
