Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not fly to the inauguration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. This trip was allegedly not part of his plans, states the Director of the Latin American Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Aleksandr Shchetinin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not fly to Mexico for the inauguration of President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said in an interview with RTVI channel on Sept. 20.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not travel to Mexico, which has signed the Rome Statute, for the inauguration of elected President Claudia Sheinbaum. Ukraine has requested the arrest of the Kremlin leader should he visit the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the country’s military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million, as Moscow’s military action in Ukraine drags on for more than two and a half years. The presidential decree, published on the official government website, will take effect on 1 December.

The Russian president earlier this year rebuffed Defense Ministry officials who had tried to convince him they needed more soldiers.

Russian Defense Ministry officials are pressuring President Vladimir Putin to launch a new wave of mobilization, with increasing talk in Moscow about the inevitability of such a move, according to The Wall Street Journal.