(CNN Spanish) – The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, does not plan to travel to Mexico to attend the inauguration of the president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, who takes office on October 1, a Kremlin spokesman said this Friday.
“The president was not planning to make that trip,” Dmitry Peskov told Russian state news agency TASS.
The Russian agency had announced in August that Sheinbaum had invited Putin. The future Mexican president’s press team then told CNN that they had sent “diplomatic notices, not equivalent to a formal invitation,” to all the countries with which Mexico maintains relations.
The Kremlin’s announcement comes a day after the director of the Department for Latin America of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Schetinin, confirmed in an interview with the RTVI television channel, whose statements were collected by TASS, that the Mexican government extended an invitation to Moscow. .
“We received the invitation, we thank the Mexican side for it. The President of the Russian Federation appointed his representative, which we duly reported,” Schetinin noted.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin for the alleged deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, an order that Moscow is unaware of. In 2005, Mexico ratified the Rome Statute, which states that “it is the duty of every State to exercise its criminal jurisdiction against those responsible for international crimes.”
The White House announced Wednesday that US first lady Jill Biden will lead the US delegation to Sheinbaum’s inauguration. Regarding the invitation to Putin, the US State Department told CNN in August that his attendance would “overshadow” what is a “historic moment” for Mexico.
