VLADIVOSTOK, April 6. /TASS/. The city assembly of Alaska’s capital Juneau has refused to sever sister city relations with Russia’s Vladivostok, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s office in Vladivostok said on its official Telegram channel.

"On Monday, April 4 the city assembly rejected a resolution calling upon the capital of Alaska, Juneau, to suspend sister city relations with Vladivostok. The resolution was turned down by five votes to four," the Russian Foreign Ministry’s office said.

The resolution was authored by Deputy Mayor Maria Gladziszewski, following a call from Alaska’s governor Mike Dunleavy for severing relations with Russian sister cities.

Assembly member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs opposed the resolution, saying that she did not support the resolution either practically or procedurally: practically, because there is no committee of sister cities the resolution might be sent to and procedurally, because it is bad practice for the city’s assembly to meddle in geopolitical affairs. Another assembly member, Barbara Waahlaal Giidaak Blake, opposed the resolution, too. She cited a statement by the international sister city program saying that suspension of sister city relations with Russian partner cities must not be used as a response to the special operation in Ukraine.

In the end, the assembly voted to instruct Juneau’s mayor to dispatch a message to the mayor of Vladivostok with an expression of support for Ukraine. Vladivostok and Juneau established sister city relations in 1991.