Updated with ministry reply

Malta sent its ambassador to Russia, Carmel Inguanez, to represent the country at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration, defying the EU’s advice to boycott the event.

Most Western states, including many countries in the EU, the US and Britain, did not send representatives.

The EU’s High Representative, Josep Borell, advised member states to avoid the ceremony to signal that the EU did not recognise Putin’s latest electoral victory, his defiance of the rule of law and his aggression towards Ukraine.

Malta was represented at the Kremlin by Ambassador Carmel Inguanez.

Speaking in Brussels, EU spokesman Peter Stano said the EU as an entity was not represented by its ambassador at the Kremlin ceremony, as Vice-President Borell requested.

Despite the EU’s advice, Stano said member states were entitled to choose whether to be represented. Malta was joined by representatives from France, Hungary, Slovakia, Cyprus, and Greece.

Stano said countries like Malta that decided to send a representative to Putin’s inauguration should “provide an explanation as to why they did so”.

The foreign ministry did not reply to questions to explain its decision.

Stano added, “The High Representative this morning described why he thinks it is not good for the EU to participate in an event involving Putin.”

According to Borell, there were no grounds for the Kremlin leader to be recognised as a democratically elected and legitimate President of Russia.

Ukraine also appealed to EU member states not to attend Putin’s inauguration, “that sought to create the illusion of legality for the nearly lifelong stay in power of a person who has turned the Russian Federation into an aggressor state and the ruling regime into a dictatorship.”

With no credible opposition, Putin won the Russian presidential election in March by a landslide, just weeks after his most prominent opponent, Alexei Navalny, died in prison.

The result means Putin will remain in power until at least 2030, when he will be 77 years old. He will become Russia’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin.

Western governments have described Putin’s re-election as unfair and undemocratic.

In reply to questions by The Shift, which were also sent to other newsrooms against common practice, said the Maltese Ambassador to Russia Carmel Inguanez was invited to attend the indicated inauguration ceremony.

The government justified its attendance by pointing out that Malta is the Chair of the OSCE. It said, “The ambassador’s attendance does not, in any way, alter or soften Malta’s strong condemnation of the Russian government’s actions in Ukraine.”