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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president on Monday defended the participation of a contingent of Russian soldiers in a military parade over the weekend.
The presence of the Russian contingent at Saturday’s Independence parade generated criticism for The Russian invasion of Ukraine. Mexico has condemned the invasion but has adopted a policy of neutrality and refused to participate in sanctions while continuing to purchase 2020 COVID vaccines from Russia.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador He noted that a contingent from China also participated, and said that all countries with which Mexico has diplomatic relations were invited.
López Obrador acknowledged that the issue became “a scandal,” but attributed it to his current dispute with the media, which he believes is against him.
“The Chinese were also in the parade and there was not as much protest,” López Obrador said, noting that a Russian contingent had participated in the past, although at times when that country was not actively invading its neighbor.
“All the countries with which Mexico has diplomatic relations were invited,” he said.
However, the Ukrainian ambassador to Mexico, Oksana Dramaretska, wrote on her social media accounts that “The civil-military parade in Mexico City was tainted by the participation of a Russian regiment; “The boots and hands of these war criminals are stained with blood.”
Some members of López Obrador’s Morena party have publicly expressed affection for Russia even after the invasion, and López Obrador has frequently criticized the United States for sending weapons to Ukraine.
The López Obrador administration has continued buying from Russia Sputnik COVID Vaccine and intends to use it as a booster vaccine later this year, along with the Cuban Abdala vaccine.
Experts have questioned the use of those vaccines, along with Mexico’s own. homeland vaccineas a reinforcement of new variants, because all of them were designed in 2020 to combat the variants that were circulating at that time.