Cristina Hodgson
THE mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, has already returned the controversial Pushkin medal that Vladimir Putin awarded him in 2018.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the mayor of Malaga has been under pressure from the Junta and opposition politicians on Malaga council to return the medal and cancel the city’s cultural links with Russia.
It was only at the end of last week that Francisco de la Torre announced that he had consulted Spain’s Foreign Ministry and had decided to return the medal, which will now go back to the Russian embassy in Spain.
In the last week, the medal, which the mayor received in Russia three years ago after the opening of the Russian Museum in the Tabacalera, has generated a heated debate with the opposition parties in Malaga council, especially with the PSOE, which even threatened to call an extraordinary plenary session if the mayor did not return the decoration.
Questioned by journalists yesterday, March 9, the counsellor explained that the procedures were already underway to return the state decoration and that ‘that issue has already been resolved’.
De la Torre made this clarification after observing five minutes of silence at the gates of the Casona del Parque as a symbol of solidarity with the Ukrainian people, who are suffering the brutal invasion of their country by Russia.
De la Torre, has made clear his ‘absolute condemnation of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine’ adding that the return of his medal and the suspension of the agreements with the Russian Museum are a ‘direct message to Putin about the effects of his madness in invading Ukraine.’
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