Russian president Vladimir Putin is to stay away from a major event at Auschwitz in two weeks, marking 70 years since inmates of the Nazi death camp were liberated by the Red Army.

Putin’s absence – he delivered a speech at Auschwitz at a similar event a decade ago – highlights the damage his Ukraine policies have done to Russia’s relations with Europe and presages what is likely to be a series of diplomatic snubs and boycotts in the months ahead as Europe commemorates the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Hitler’s Germany.

A Kremlin spokesman confirmed that Putin would not attend the Auschwitz ceremonies, saying that the Polish government had not invited the Russian leader while also admitting it was not up to Warsaw to issue invitations. The commemoration is organised by the international committee administering the site near Krakow in southern Poland. The committee includes Russian representatives. The Polish foreign ministry also confirmed it had not invited Putin, but it added that Moscow was welcome to send whomever it wished.

But a Putin trip to Poland would have been intensely awkward for Warsaw, which has been leading a hawkish line on Russia in the EU over the conflict in Ukraine.

The diplomatic tiff over Auschwitz is almost certain to generate further friction as Europe gears up to mark the end of the second world war 70 years ago in May. The Russians set great store by their role in vanquishing the Nazis in what they dub the great patriotic war. Victory Day on 9 May is a national holiday celebrated with pomp and circumstance on the capital’s Red Square.

Already two of the Baltic states, Estonia and Lithuania – fearful and intensely critical of Russian actions in Ukraine – have said they will stay away from the 9 May events in Moscow. The third Baltic state, Latvia – which has just inherited the rotating EU presidency – is trying to fashion a common European position on the Moscow ceremonies. But it is inconceivable that the German leadership would snub the Russians on such a sensitive issue.

Edgars Rinkēvičs, the Latvian foreign minister, said he would raise the topic at a meeting of EU foreign ministers next week. “Will we achieve a consensus? I don’t know,” he said. He suggested that all three Baltic states and Poland would boycott Moscow in May.

Auschwitz was the epicentre of the German genocide of European Jews, with about 1.5 million murdered in its gas chambers.

The resurgent nationalism of Russia under Putin and his territorial designs on Ukraine, however, have re-ignited hostility and fear across eastern Europe and sparked panic in western Europe and Nato.

While the Russians celebrate 9 May as their finest hour, the Baltic states struggle to share the sentiment as Russia’s victory coincided with their forcible incorporation into Stalin’s Soviet Union, while the Poles and the rest of eastern Europe were hauled into the Soviet bloc for the following 40 years.

The row over Auschwitz coincides with the collapse of diplomatic efforts in Berlin to convene Ukraine peace talks in Kazakhstan and an upsurge of pro-Russia separatist attacks in eastern Ukraine.

The foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France failed to make any progress on a Ukraine settlement that would have paved the way for a summit of the national leaders in Astana.

Paradoxically, the second world war also figured in the putative peace talks, which were to be held under the so-called “Normandy format” – referring to the meeting of the four leaders last summer when they marked the anniversary of the D-Day landings in northern France.