Sarasota City Commissioner Wants To End Sister City Relationship With Vladimir, Russia

SARASOTA, FL — As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, a Sarasota city commissioner wants to end Sarasota’s sister city relationship with Vladimir, Russia.

In a letter sent Monday to Miriam Kramer, president of the Sister Cities Association of Sarasota, Commissioner Hagen Brody said he will seek to end the relationship between the two cities at the Sarasota City Commission’s Monday meeting.

Vladimir, about 114 miles northeast of Moscow, has been a sister city to Sarasota since 1994, according to the Sister Cities Association of Sarasota website.

The two cities, Vladimir and Sarasota, have organized events together and educational exchanges, including a virtual chess matches. The Sister Cities Association recently canceled a chess match between the two cities — in which Brody and Mayor Erik Arroyo would be competing — that was supposed to take place during what became the first few days of the war, Kramer told Patch.

In addition to Vladimir, other sister cities to Sarasota include Dunfermline, Scotland; Merida, Mexico; Perpignan, France; Tel Mond, Israel; and Xiamen, China. Sarasota Friendship Cities include Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland and Busseto, Italy.

“The mission of Sister Cities International is a noble one. The program was founded by President Eisenhower in 1956, in the aftermath of World War II, who believed that peaceful relations between nations requires understanding and mutual respect between individuals,” Brody wrote. “However, at some point, a relationship becomes so tortured that blindly continuing those relations is tantamount to condoning the conduct of the government that represents them. I feel we have passed that point.”

Seven days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the two countries are preparing to hold talks for a second time, planning to meet in Belarus on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Russia’s assault on Ukrainian cities continued Wednesday, including a strike on the country’s second largest, Kharkiv, according to The Associated Press. The human toll of the war kept mounting, too, with the number of Ukrainians who have fled from their homeland expected to reach 1 million soon and the Ukrainian government putting the civilian death toll in the thousands, though the claim couldn’t be verified.

“The global norms and mutual respect for nations and citizens has been shattered by the recent and ongoing Russian assault upon Ukraine," Brody said. "A country that posed no threat and is drastically outmatched militarily, placing Ukrainian service members and civilians in the impossible predicament of defending their homeland to near certain death or giving it up to the invader.”

The commissioner is especially concerned that Vladimir is home to the 27th Guards Red Banner Rocket Army, one of the three rocket armies within Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, he said. “Those same forces currently threatening the civilized world.”

Kramer told Patch that ending the relationship between Vladimir and Sarasota would be a mistake.

“Right now, it could not be more important than to do this with Vladimir,” she said. “We have to come up with a solution here, but the solution isn’t canceling our relationship.”

Eisenhower founded the Sister Cities initiative with the goal of preventing and weakening war and conflict across the globe, Kramer said.

“Trying to cancel connections that are pro-peace and pro-cultural understanding is the worst move possible right now. Sister Cities Association of Sarasota is not remotely political; it promotes goodwill through friendly exchanges with eight cities overseas, among which Vladimir is one,” she said. “We connect with ordinary Russian people living their lives, not governmental leaders, and politicians. A connection that promotes people-to-people understanding is exactly what we need right now to promote peace.”

Kramer said that she’s made numerous friendships and connections with residents of Vladimir over the years, speaking with her colleagues in Russia weekly and trading information about their cities.

Everyone she has met there is against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said. “My friends in Russia are not happy about it at all. My friends at Sister Cities Vladimir are not happy about it. They are pro-peace. They wouldn’t be doing this otherwise.”

At the same time, she understands where Brody is coming from.

“I completely understand the commissioner is very upset. We’re all upset. We’re all seeing these terrible images of what’s happening,” Kramer said. “But we are pro-peace. If the commissioner got his way, he would be building walls instead of bridges.”