Vladimir Putin will not be going to the London Olympics, diplomatic sources have said, in an apparent signal of the Russian president's continuing displeasure and irritation with Britain, The Guardian reported.
Putin will not attend the London 2012 opening ceremony on 27 July, sources confirmed, despite the fact that Moscow will host the Winter Olympics in 2014 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Instead, the Russian president is likely to dispatch his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, to London.
The snub follows Putin's controversial decision earlier this month to boycott the G8 summit hosted by the US president, Barack Obama. Putin claimed he was too busy forming his new government to attend, and sent Medvedev instead. He has accused the U.S. of inciting street protests against him and is unhappy with Washington's missile defence plans in Europe.
Putin has a long list of grievances against Britain. As well as the unresolved Alexander Litvinenko affair – a source of smouldering tension – the Kremlin has been infuriated by calls to ban senior Russians accused of human rights abuses.
In March, a group of backbench MPs voted to refuse visas to officials implicated in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in prison in 2009. The Foreign Office has so far ignored the non-binding vote and ruled out a Magnitsky ban.
