Tensions have been rumbling between the two leaders since the weekend, when Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution aimed at ending Syrian regime airstrikes on Aleppo and allowing humanitarian aid into the city. France and Spain had put forward the resolution. “The President has made a decision to cancel this visit (to Paris),” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state-run news agency TASS.
Putin was scheduled to attend events linked to the opening of a Russian religious and cultural center, but the trip was canceled because the events “fell out of the program.”
But a French government official told CNN that Putin canceled because he did not agree with Hollande’s request that the meeting be dedicated to Syria.