Kremlin says Putin not invited by Poland to attend ceremony marking liberation of Auschwitz

FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle during the ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp by Soviet troops in Oswiecim, Poland. Putin will not travel to a ceremony in Poland marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp because he hasn't been invited by the hosts, the Kremlin said Tuesday Jan. 13, 2015. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File) (The Associated Press)

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens during a meeting in Moscow's Kremlin, Russia on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2014. Putin will not travel to a ceremony in Poland marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp because he hasn't been invited by the hosts, the Kremlin said Tuesday. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Presidential Press Service) (The Associated Press)

MOSCOW – The Kremlin says President Vladimir Putin hasn't been invited to a ceremony in Poland marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by the Soviet troops.

The Interfax news agency quoted Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Tuesday that Putin hasn't received an invitation and therefore will not attend the event later this month.

Russia's ties with the West have plummeted to their lowest point since the Cold War times over the Ukrainian crisis. The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions against Moscow over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and support for a pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

Poland has been one of the harshest critics of the Kremlin's policy, and relations between the two countries have been tense.