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A battle for truth and glory as Russia marks
Victory Day
Society set up by Vladimir Putin aims to combat
falsification of history but it has its own selective memory
Russian servicemen drive BTR-82A armoured personnel carriers
(APC) during the drive through
Red Square
By Tom Parfitt, Moscow
10:01AM BST 09 May 2015
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11594290/A-battle-for-truth-and-
glory-as-Russia-marks-Victory-Day.html
As Moscow marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second
World War with a grandiose
military parade on Saturday, lines are being drawn in a battle
for historical truth.
Politicians, historians and ordinary citizens in Russia believe
the West is engaged in a campaign
to blur the Soviet Unions pre-eminent role in winning the
war.
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Some think the attempt is orchestrated by foreign governments
and intelligence agencies, while
many see it as part of a wider political attack, motivated by
divisions between Moscow,
Washington and European capitals over the war in Ukraine.
Kremlin-backed efforts to counter the perceived campaign to
twist history and blight Soviet
glory are in turn vulnerable to accusations of manipulation and
selective memory.
Meanwhile, symbols of past military valour in Russia such as the
black and orange St Georges ribbon have been appropriated by
Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, as the Kremlin
frames its modern-day struggles as a natural extension of the
heroic fight against fascism between 1941 and 1945.
Vladimir Putin, Russias president, set the tone in March at a
Kremlin meeting to discuss preparations for Saturdays Victory Day
events.
Brazen defamation of Russia
Today we unfortunately see not only attempts to misrepresent and
distort events of the war, but cynical, open lies and the brazen
defamation of a whole generation who gave up everything for
the victory, Mr Putin said. Their goal is clear: to undermine
the power and moral authority of modern Russia and deprive it of
the status of a victorious nation.
Moscow believes the West underplays the huge sacrifice that the
Soviet Union made in the war almost 27m people died compared to
400,000 British victims. It was also furious when Arseny
Yatsenyuk, Ukraines prime minister, recently said that the
Soviet Union invaded Ukraine and Germany during the war.
More widely, Mr Putin and his allies doubt the very existence of
Ukraine as a separate nation,
and are incensed by any suggestion that Communist and Nazi
terror in Europe were as bad as
each other.
On Thursday, Dalia Grybauskaite, the president of Lithuania,
angered Moscow by saying that,
"for Lithuanians, Poles and others in Central Europe the war did
not end on May 8. We suffered
from a new occupation, a new dictatorship and new
atrocities.
Combating distortion
In an attempt to combat such alleged calumnies, Mr Putin issued
an order in 2012 to set up the
Russian Military-Historical Society (RVIO), and charged it with
popularising academic research,
fostering patriotism and resisting attempts to distort military
history.
The society has become well-known for erecting at least 30 new
monuments to military heroes,
excoriating Hollywood films and supporting the controversial
victory ride this month to Berlin by members of Mr Putins favourite
biker group, the Night Wolves.
Its chairman, is Vladimir Medinsky, Russias culture minister,
who authored a series of popular books titled myths about Russia
before joining the cabinet three years ago.
This week, Mr Medinsky gave a lecture on the historical
significance of the 70th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War at
Moscows Plekhanov University.
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The talk focused on the statistics of casualties during the war,
demonstrating the Soviet Unions heavy losses and the corresponding
damage the Red Army caused to German forces. British
deaths were displayed as a fraction one sixty-seventh of those
suffered by the Soviet Union.
Allies helped Soviet victory
The help of the Allies was important but the Soviets played the
overwhelming role in victory over the Nazis, Mr Medinsky stressed.
Seventy five per cent of all German losses were on the Eastern
Front, he told an audience that included history students. This is
the answer to all questions.
Speaking to the Telegraph after the lecture, Mr Medinsky said
wartime leaders such as Winston
Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower had never doubted the enormous
Soviet contribution but it
was now being belittled abroad. There is no single person
ordering this but it is the result of a conflict of political
interests, he said.
A YouGov poll published earlier this month found that 50 per
cent of respondents in the UK
thought Britain did the most to win the war while only 15 per
chose the Soviet Union.
Mr Medinsky said that every one of the 250,000 British officers
and soldiers who died was a hero, full stop. But Russian
authorities have been charged with their own attempts to play down
the role of wartime partners. Last month, the Federal Security
Service (FSB) was reportedly
behind the closure of a museum that was about to open an
exhibition in Yekaterinburg called
Triumph and Tragedy: Allies in the Second World War.
The exhibition, which was party organised by the British
consulate in the city and featured
photographs from the Imperial War Museum, later reopened at a
different venue in the city. The
reporter who revealed the FSB closure in the local government
newspaper was fired.
Spies at work
Vladislav Kononov, the deputy director of the RVIO suggests the
Wests own intelligence agencies are behind attempts to denigrate
Russias role in the war. He cited reports that the CIA and US
officials act to influence Hollywood releases.
US films are a bugbear for the truth-seekers. Last month, Russia
banned Child 44, a thriller set in
the late Stalin era that was produced by Ridley Scott and stars
Gary Oldman, after it was deemed
historically inaccurate. Mr Medinsky said the film made the
Soviet Union out to be not a country but Mordor, populated by
physical and moral subhumans, a bloody mass of orcs and ghouls.
Mr Kononov was upset by the opening scene in which Soviet
soldiers raise a flag over the
Reichstag and ones arm is all hanging with watches.
I remember well a photograph from a Soviet history schoolbook in
which an SS officer in a helmet with rolled-up sleeves was wearing
many looted watches, he said. And here that is turned on its head
so that our victorious soldier is portrayed like a demon.
In another case, the military-historical society accused the
makers of a German World War Two
documentary called Our Mothers, Our Fathers of painting a
distorted picture. We are particularly outraged at an episode in
which Soviet soldiers burst into a German hospital, kill the
injured and rape the nurses," it said in a statement, adding
that there were just a handful of
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instances of Red Army soldiers' inhuman treatment of German
citizens, and these soldiers were
severely punished by the Soviet authorities.
Antony Beevor, the British historian, has estimated that two
million German women were raped
by ill-disciplined Soviet soldiers at the end of the war.
A turn to selective Soviet history
What is called the falsification of history in Russia today is
often, in fact, the contrary a fuller, more effective
representation of history than there was in Soviet times, said
Andrei Zubov, a historian, in a telephone interview.
Mr Zubov was sacked from his job at Moscows prestigious State
Institute of International Relations last year after writing an
article comparing a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine with
Nazi Germany's Anschluss with Austria in 1938.
In Soviet times a huge number of facts about the Second World
War were hidden, he added. The classic examples are the secret
protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the killing by the
NKVD of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn, which Soviet
authorities blamed on the
Nazis.
What our state is doing now is a struggle to preserve an
incomplete and in some ways false history, the hiding of some facts
in order to retain the Soviet vision of the Second World War.
And that of course contradicts the scholarly approach that every
new piece of knowledge
develops, widen and changes academic thinking. In a word, it is
obscurantism.
Stalin: tyrant or military genius?
One charge is that Russias warriors against distortion are
themselves downplaying the tyranny of Joseph Stalin, who was
commander in chief during the war.
The dictator has once again begun to appear on patriotic
billboards in Russia and a bust of him
was erected in the town of Lipetsk this week (it was later
doused in paint by a protester).
Mr Kononov repeated a familiar argument that it was too early to
judge Stalins legacy, which might only become apparent in hundreds
of years despite exhaustive evidence of his crimes.
This week, Memorial, the organisation dedicated to preserving
the memory of the millions who
were shot, tortured or sent to the gulag in Stalins times, said
any attempts to put up monuments in his honour were blasphemous and
should be banned by law.
Mr Medinsky said he was personally against statues of Stalin
because they split society but argued they should be erected in
places where the majority of local people were in favour.
In front of the British parliament there is a wonderful monument
to Oliver Cromwell who was such a butcher that he makes Ivan the
Terrible look like a monk in a white habit, he said. Cromwell was
the Stalin of his times. But he is a complex and remarkable figure
and the English are right, having erected that monument, not to
remove it.
Mr Medinsky also drew a comparison between the percentage of
Soviet citizens in labour camps
and Americas current prison population, saying the latter was
greater. When it was suggested to
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him the US system was not the gulag, the minister made a noise
expressing doubt and said: Ask an inmate in the US, is it good or
bad to be a prisoner in the US.
Despite Stalins faults, Mr Medinsky added, if he had fled from
Moscow like the leaders of other states such as Poland fled [their
cities], if he had capitulated, we would still have won but
there would have been millions more victims. So his personal
courage saved millions of lives.
Ukrainians and Russians are one
The culture minister reserved his most scathing remarks for the
leadership of Ukraine.
Russian patriotic rhetoric today sees a thread running through
the Second World War to the
current conflict in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow
separatists are fighting what they call the
fascist junta the Western-backed government in Kiev.
The St Georges ribbon now worn by hundreds of thousands of
Russians for Victory Day is also pinned on the rebels uniforms.
Last month, Dmitry Kiselev, the state television executive often
called Vladimir Putins propagandist-in-chief, said the ribbon had
become a symbol of the struggle against dominance of any single
power or regime meaning the United States - and of a multipolar
world.
The Kremlin also cries foul at politicians in Kiev who say that
Ukrainian nationalists like Stepan
Bandera who collaborated with the Nazis to fight Soviet forces
were heroes.
Ukraines deeper roots remain a subject of bitter debate. Andrew
Wilson, the British historian who is an authority on the country,
argues that a truly separate Ukrainian identity began to
emerge in the 17th century.
Mr Medinsky, like Mr Putin, doubts the very existence of a
Ukrainian nation, saying Ukrainians
and Russians are one people.
He poured scorn on a recent decree issued by Petro Poroshenko,
in which the Ukrainian
president called the 10th century prince, Vladimir the Great,
the creator of the medieval European state of Rus-Ukraine.
Rus was in fact a loose federation of Slavic tribes and Ukraine
did not exist as a word at the time.
This is fantasy history, like something from Game of Thrones or
Lord of the Rings, said Mr Medinsky with a derisive cackle.
Tolkien, George Martin and Petro Poroshenko three greats of world
historiography.
geogibsonenfloride Wymington 2 hours ago
It is false to say that the USSR/Russia had become Hitler's
ally. As the German
invasion of
June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa !) proved, the Nazi's were
planning to invade and
carve up
Eurasia (=Russia/USSR) well before August, 1939. This fact is
suppressed-- for some
reason -- in Anglo-American chronology of events. The
Nonaggression Pact between USSR
& Hitler pledged no war as of August, 1939. What, exactly,
the 'West' wanted is
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profoundly contradictory: to stymie Hitler, but do so without in
any way 'helping' the
Russian Bolsheviks (!). This was not possible at the time:
France had a defence pact
with Poland, but refused one with USSR. Muddled thinking,
surely. The August 1939
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact bought precious time for the Russians;
when in June 1941 the
Wehrmacht invaded, by then, new armament factories had been
built East of the Urals
and were able to supply the USSR armies that, eventually,
reversed and defeated Nazi
Germany.
Vladimir Putin: US trying to create 'unipolar world'
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/09/vladimir-putin-us-trying-to-create-unipolar-
world
Russian president uses Moscows annual Victory Day parade to
accuse the US of ignoring principles of international
cooperation
Thousands of Russian troops march across Red Square in Moscow on
Saturday to mark the 70th
anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany
Damien Gayle and agencies
Saturday 9 May 2015 11.05 BST Last modified on Saturday 9 May
2015 16.42 BST
Vladimir Putin has used an address commemorating the 70th
anniversary of victory over Nazi
Germany to accuse the US of attempting to dominate the
world.
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Speaking at Moscows annual Victory Day parade in Red Square,
which this year has been boycotted by western leaders over the
continuing crisis in Ukraine, the Russian president berated
Washington for attempts to create a unipolar world.
Putin said despite the importance of international cooperation,
in the past decades we have seen attempts to create a unipolar
world. That phrase is often used by Russia to criticise the US for
purportedly attempting to dominate world affairs.
The US president, Barack Obama, has snubbed the festivities, as
have the leaders of Russias other key second world war allies,
Britain and France, leaving Putin to mark the day in the
company of the leaders of China, Cuba and Venezuela.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has likewise ducked out of
attending the parade but will
fly to Moscow on Sunday to lay a wreath at the grave of the
Unknown Warrior and meet the
Russian president.
As western sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine
continue to bite, Moscow has
increasingly appeared to pivot away from Europe and focus more
on developing relations with
China. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will be the most
high-profile guest on the podium next to
Putin. Other presidents in attendance include Indias Pranab
Mukherjee, president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi of Egypt, Ral Castro of
Cuba, Nicols Maduro of Venezuela, Robert Mugabe of
Zimbabwe and Jacob Zuma of South Africa.
Russia used the parade to show off its latest military
technology including the Armata tank in the parade, which included
16,000 troops and a long convoy of weapons dating from the
second
world war to the present day. Also on show for the first time
was a RS-24 Yars ICBM launcher,
which Moscow has said described as a response to US and Nato
anti-missile systems.
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Russia's Victory Day military parade in
pictures
View gallery
The celebrations stand in contrast to the festivities a decade
ago, when Putin hosted the leaders
of the US, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
The Soviet Union lost about 27 million soldiers and civilians
more than any other country in what it calls the great patriotic
war, and the Red Armys triumph remains an enormous source of
national pride.
On Saturday morning, many Muscovites sported garrison caps and
black and orange striped
ribbons that have become a symbol of patriotism in recent years.
More than 70% of Russians say
a close family member was killed or went missing during the war,
making Victory Day an
emotional symbol of unity for the nation.
In recent years, victory in what Russians see as a 1941-1945
conflict has been raised to cult
status and critics accuse Putin of seeking to co-opt the
countrys history to boost his personal power.
The Kremlin has also used second world war narratives to rally
support for its current political
agenda, for example painting the Ukrainian government as Nazi
sympathisers.
Later in the day around 200,000 people were expected to march
through Red Square with
portraits of relatives who fought in the war, in a
Kremlin-backed campaign dubbed the
immortal regiment.
The parade will also see more than 100 military planes including
long-range nuclear bombers swoop over Moscow in a spectacular
flyby.
Smaller parades in 25 other cities will involve 25,000 soldiers
and even nuclear submarines,
according to the defence ministry.
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Russian S-400 Triumph medium-range and long-range surface-to-air
missile systems drive during the
Victory Day parade at Red SquarePicture: Reuters
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Russia also has its Victory Day but nobody
else wants to share it
Western leaders will stay away from parades for the 24 million
who died in the
Second World War
Jennifer Monaghan
Moscow
Friday 08 May 2015
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-also-has-its-victory-day--but-nobody-
else-wants-to-share-it-10237242.html
At a pop-up stall in central Moscow, street vendor Alexei
Mendeleyev sells mugs emblazoned
with images of President Vladimir Putin as he looks to
capitalise on the patriotic fervour
generated ahead of Russias Victory Day celebrations.
Marked on 9 May as opposed to 8 May as in western Europe Victory
Day was, is and always will be a celebration in Russia, says Mr
Mendeleyev, who fled to Moscow last year from Ukraines war-torn
Donetsk region. Across the street, a woman tries to peddle Soviet
pilot hats to passers-by some of whom wear the orange and
black-striped St George ribbon, a symbol akin to the red poppy, in
their lapels or tied to their handbags and rucksacks.
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Victory Day is a public holiday in Russia, marked by large
parades and firework displays in
cities across the country. The scale of the celebration is
unsurprising: the Soviet Union suffered
up to 24 million civilian and military casualties during the war
about 50 times greater than the losses incurred by Great Britain,
according to statistics cited by the US National World War II
Museum.
Children wear Red Army caps (Getty Images)
The pice de rsistance of this years Victory Day, which marks 70
years since the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, will be a
military parade through the centre of Moscow. About 200
vehicles
will proceed along the citys main thoroughfare, Tverskaya
Ulitsa, and onto Red Square outside of the Kremlin. A fly-by
involving 150 planes and helicopters will take place overhead.
At a rehearsal on Monday, the crowd gave out a loud cheer as a
RS-24 Yars intercontinental
ballistic missile, which is capable of delivering three nuclear
warheads, rumbled down
Tverskaya Ulitsa. Russia will also use the parade to publicly
unveil its new Armata T-14 tank described on Twitter this week as a
beauty by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the
countrys military-industrial complex. Organisers will be hoping the
tank doesnt break down, as it appeared to do in a dress rehearsal
on Thursday. The tanks driver raised a small red flag to show he
had problems but managed to drive on about 30 minutes later after
an
attempt to tow it away was abandoned.
The parade announcer later announced that the stoppage had been
planned to demonstrate how
military equipment could be evacuated from the battlefield,
prompting laughter from the
audience. It will be the first new main battle tank deployed by
Russia in 40 years, part of plans to
produce 2,300 new tanks in the next five years under a costly
programme to replace ageing
Soviet-era military vehicles.
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Victory Day is a public holiday in Russia, marked by large
parades (AFP)
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Cuban leader Raul Castro will be
among the 27 foreign dignitaries
who will travel to Moscow for celebrations marking Victory Day,
presidential aide Yury
Ushakov was cited as saying Wednesday by the Interfax news
agency.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was also due to visit the
capital in what would have marked
his first foreign visit since taking power, though the countrys
titular head of state Kim Yong-nam will now travel in his place.
There will however be noticeable absences at this years parade on
Red Square as many Western leaders have decided to shun the
celebrations in protest at
Russias actions in Ukraine.
Barack Obama, David Cameron and French President Franois
Hollande have all chosen not to
attend the celebrations in Moscow. German Chancellor Angela
Merkel will lay a wreath at the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Sunday, but will skip the main
parade on Saturday, her
spokesman Steffen Seiber said, according to Deutsche Well.For
many, the decision by Western
leaders to snub the ceremony is an affront to the memory of the
war dead, who died in a conflict
known as the Great Patriotic War.
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For many the true meaning of the day has become lost in the
furore surrounding contemporary
politics (AFP/Getty)
In my view it is very disrespectful, and childish. If the West
wanted to win the hearts and minds of Russians, they would have
done right the opposite attend the celebrations with the Russian
citizens for whom 9 May is the holiest day of the whole year, says
Guennadi Moukine, who was born in Russia but now works in
Australia.
The most prominent absentee will be Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko, the head of a one-
time brotherly nation whose relations with Russia have soured
following the Crimean annexation
and the conflict in Ukraine.
There will be a parade in Moscow on 9 May, in which the weapons
that are being used today in Donetsk will be displayed. Ukraine has
rejected an offer to take part in this parade, Mr Poroshenko
said.
For others in Russia, the true meaning of Victory Day a chance
to commemorate the sacrifices made by soldiers and civilians alike
has been lost in the furore surrounding contemporary politics. Why
politicise and dramatise the attendance or non-attendance [of world
leaders]? asks Aislu Van Rain, a Russian teacher whose father was
injured in the defence of Moscow and
suffered from war trauma for the rest of his life.
They would do better to think how to thank their own veterans,
she adds.
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A Russian T 14 Armata tank rides through Red Square in Moscow,
on 7 May 2015, during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military
parade. Russia will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the 1945
victory over Nazi Germany.
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Poland: Europes victims of Soviet
occupation find no reason for celebrations
Central European countries gather in Poland for sombre
ceremony
Matthew Day
Warsaw
Friday 08 May 2015
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-europes-victims-of-soviet-occupation-
find-no-reason-for-celebrations-10237256.html
The leaders of a swathe of Europe freed from Nazi occupation by
the Red Army gathered in
Poland to commemorate the end of the war, but there was little
in the way of celebration.
At the official ceremony at Westerplatte, the spit of land in
Gdansk where the very first shots of
the Second World War were fired, as the clock struck midnight
and ushered in 8 May, Polish
artillery fired a salvo in salute, trumpets sounded a fanfare
and that was that.
Devoid of pomp, the sombre atmosphere reflected central Europes
ambivalent attitude to the end of the European war. While Poles,
Czechs and other nationalities recognise the huge cost
Soviet forces endured in their defeat of Germany, they resent
the fact the same forces brought
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with them another form of occupation and a system of political
subjugation that remained in
place till the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989.
For Lithuanians, Poles and others in central Europe, the war did
not end on 8 May. We suffered from a new occupation, a new
dictatorship and new atrocities, Dalia Grybauskaite, the Lithuanian
President, told the Polish press before the ceremony, adding that
some 300,000
Lithuanians had been imprisoned or sent to the gulags by the
Soviet liberators.
In recognition of some of the victims of Communist repression,
earlier on 7 May, a group of
leaders, including the presidents of the Czech Republic,
Romania, Ukraine, Estonia and
Bulgaria, visited a memorial in Gdansk to 42 shipyard workers
massacred by state security
forces in 1970.
The Ukraine war and Russias annexation of Crimea have also added
poignancy to commemorations in Poland. The country has always
viewed their giant neighbour with
suspicion, and now fears of an apparently revanchist Russia
under Vladimir Putin make for an
unsettling combination when mixed with memories of the war and
post-war repression.
The war in Ukraine does not let us forget that in Europe there
are still forces reminiscent of the darkest days of the 20th
century, which do not respect the rule of law and civilised
relations
between nations, said Bronislaw Komorowski, the Polish President
and a former anti-Communist dissident, during a speech at
Westerplatte.
Ukraine expressed its desire to forge closer ties with Europe,
for its people to live a normal life in dignity and freedom, but
its stronger neighbour responded through the use of force and
changing borders, he continued.
This is something we have not seen in Europe since 1945. That is
why it is hard for us to celebrate with joy the end of the war in
Europe 70 years ago.
Across Poland, Soviet-era statues and memorials are slowly being
removed from public places
and relocated in museums and war cemeteries. Earlier this year,
the Russian embassy in Poland
protested after Warsaws government voted against the return of a
statue featuring four Soviet soldiers to a prominent square in the
city.
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We pay tribute to all those who fought to the bitter for every
street, every house and every frontier of our Motherland
Vladimir Putin delivers Speech at military parade on Red
Square
in Moscow to mark the 70th anniversary of Victory in the
19411945
Great Patriotic War.
May 9, 2015 10:20
Fellow citizens of Russia,
Dear veterans,
Distinguished guests,
Comrade soldiers and seamen, sergeants and sergeant majors,
midshipmen and warrant officers,
Comrade officers, generals and admirals,
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I congratulate you all on the 70th Anniversary of Victory in the
Great Patriotic War!
Today, when we mark this sacred anniversary, we once again
appreciate the enormous scale of Victory over Nazism. We are proud
that it was our fathers and grandfathers who succeeded in
prevailing over, smashing and destroying that dark force.
Hitler's reckless adventure became a tough lesson for the entire
world community. At that time, in the 1930s, the enlightened Europe
failed to see the deadly threat in the Nazi ideology.
Today, seventy years later, the history calls again to our
wisdom and vigilance. We must not forget that the ideas of racial
supremacy and exclusiveness had provoked the bloodiest war ever.
The war affected almost 80 percent of the world population. Many
European nations were enslaved and occupied.
The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the enemy's attacks. The
elite Nazi forces were brought to bear on it. All their military
power was concentrated against it. And all major decisive battles
of World War II, in terms of military power and equipment involved,
had been waged there.
And it is no surprise that it was the Red Army that, by taking
Berlin in a crushing attack, hit the final blow to Hitler's Germany
finishing the war.
Our entire multi-ethnic nation rose to fight for our Motherlands
freedom. Everyone bore the severe burden of the war. Together, our
people made an immortal exploit to save the country. They
predetermined the outcome of World War II. They liberated European
nations from the Nazis.
Veterans of the Great Patriotic War, wherever they live today,
should know that here, in Russia, we highly value their fortitude,
courage and dedication to frontline brotherhood.
-
Dear friends,
The Great Victory will always remain a heroic pinnacle in the
history of our country. But we also pay tribute to our allies in
the anti-Hitler coalition.
We are grateful to the peoples of Great Britain, France and the
United States of America for their contribution to the Victory. We
are thankful to the anti-fascists of various countries who
selflessly fought the enemy as guerrillas and members of the
underground resistance, including in Germany itself.
We remember the historical meeting on the Elbe, and the trust
and unity that became our common legacy and an example of
unification of peoples for the sake of peace and stability.
It is precisely these values that became the foundation of the
post-war world order. The United Nations came into existence. And
the system of the modern international law has emerged.
These institutions have proved in practice their effectiveness
in resolving disputes and conflicts.
However, in the last decades, the basic principles of
international cooperation have come to be increasingly ignored.
These are the principles that have been hard won by mankind as a
result of the ordeal of the war.
We saw attempts to establish a unipolar world. We see the
strong-arm block thinking gaining momentum. All that undermines
sustainable global development.
-
The creation of a system of equal security for all states should
become our common task. Such system should be an adequate match to
modern threats, and it should rest on a regional and global
non-block basis. Only then will we be able to ensure peace and
tranquillity on the planet.
Dear friends,
We welcome today all our foreign guests while expressing a
particular gratitude to the representatives of the countries that
fought against Nazism and Japanese militarism.
Besides the Russian servicemen, parade units of ten other states
will march through the Red Square as well. These include soldiers
from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan. Their forefathers fought shoulder to shoulder both at
the front and in the rear.
These also include servicemen from China, which, just like the
Soviet Union, lost many millions of people in this war. China was
also the main front in the fight against militarism in Asia.
Indian soldiers fought courageously against the Nazis as
well.
Serbian troops also offered strong and relentless resistance to
the fascists.
Throughout the war our country received strong support from
Mongolia.
These parade ranks include grandsons and great-grandsons of the
war generation. The Victory Day is our common holiday. The Great
Patriotic War was in fact the battle for the future of the entire
humanity.
Our fathers and grandfathers lived through unbearable
sufferings, hardships and losses. They worked till exhaustion, at
the limit of human capacity. They fought even unto death. They
proved the example of honour and true patriotism.
We pay tribute to all those who fought to the bitter for every
street, every house and every frontier of our Motherland. We bow to
those who perished in severe battles near Moscow and Stalingrad, at
the Kursk Bulge and on the Dnieper.
We bow to those who died from famine and cold in the unconquered
Leningrad, to those who were tortured to death in concentration
camps, in captivity and under occupation.
We bow in loving memory of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers,
grandfathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, comrades-in-arms,
relatives and friends all those who never came back from war, all
those who are no longer with us.
-
A minute of silence is announced.
Minute of silence.
Dear veterans,
You are the main heroes of the Great Victory Day. Your feat
predestined peace and decent life for many generations. It made it
possible for them to create and move forward fearlessly.
And today your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
live up to the highest standards that you set. They work for the
sake of their country's present and future. They serve their
Fatherland with devotion. They respond to complex challenges of the
time with honour. They guarantee the successful development, might
and prosperity of our Motherland, our Russia!
Long live the victorious people!
Happy holiday!
Congratulations on the Victory Day!
Hooray!
-
Staying Away From Moscows Victory Day Parade
Posted by: Judy Dempsey Monday, May 4, 2015 4 Print Page
http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=59974
Every year on May 9, Russia celebrates Victory Day, the
anniversary of the Soviet Unions defeat of Nazi Germany, with a
military parade in Moscow. Twicein 1995 and in 2005Western leaders
attended. Then, there was a sense of hope for a new relationship
between the
West and Russia.
But the West did not have a unanimous view of the parades. Nor,
indeed, was the West
unanimous that its relationship with Russia would be based on
genuine cooperationperhaps even on shared values.
Old Europe, or Western Europe, perceived the parades as a
celebration to mark the end of
Nazism and fascism. The Red Armys march into Berlin in 1945
ended a horrific and cataclysmic era of European history.
Judy Dempsey
Nonresident Senior Associate
Carnegie Europe
Editor in chief
Strategic Europe
It is estimated that about 36.5 million Europeans died between
1939 and 1945. Nearly half that
number consisted of noncombatant civilians.
Nazism managed to destroy Europes rich and old Judeo-Christian
heritage, despite attempts after 1945 to build Jewish communities
and life in some parts of Europe. Over 5.7 million Jews
were sent to the Nazi death camps. In the Soviet Union, an
estimated 16 million people died, half
of whom were soldiers.
Rereading British historian Tony Judts Postwar and American
historian Timothy Snyders Bloodlands on the war and its aftermath
is a salutary reminder of the original and noble
intentions of the founding fathers of the European Union.
New Europes view of the Victory Day Parades was completely
different. The Soviet Unions Red Army was seen not as a liberator
but as an oppressor. As soon as the Nazi yoke was lifted in
1945, populations across Eastern, Central, and Southeastern
Europe were saddled with an
oppressive totalitarian system that was to last until 1989.
-
Even after regaining its independence, with few exceptions, New
Europe never shook off its
suspicion of Russia. New Europe, particularly Poland and the
Baltic states, craved security. That
is why joining the Euro-Atlantic structures of NATO and the EU
was their goal. Entering those
organizations meant being reunited with Europe. It meant feeling
safe.
Russian President Vladimir Putins annexation of the Crimean
Peninsula in March 2014 and Russias military support for
pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine punctured that sense of
security.
This interference was in sharp contrast to the wars in the
former Yugoslavia during the 1990s
and Russias quick war in Georgia in 2008. Those conflicts didnt
disturb New Europes sense of security, but in the case of Georgia,
the warnings by some governments in New Europe of
Russias intentions were vindicated. Old Europe had not taken
those warnings seriously.
But it was Putins attempts to destabilize Ukrainein a bid to
jeopardize the countrys chances to become a vibrant democracy with
a market economy and tied to Europe that changed Old Europes view
of Putins Russia.
The decision by most EU leaders or heads of state, with the
exception of those of the Czech
Republic and Slovakia, to stay away from this years May 9
Victory Day Parade signifies a shift by Old Europe. Old Europe
doesnt want to be associated with Putins triumphant nationalism and
with a Kremlin that has manipulated history by invoking an
antifascist narrative to justify its
war against Ukraine.
The Kremlin has already blamed the United States for being
behind Europes refusal to attend the paradeas if the United States
had that much influence.
Some of Putins closest allies havent made any travel
arrangements. Viktor Orbn, the prime minister of Hungary, is
staying at home, and so is the countrys president, Jnos der.
Aleksander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, a member of
Russian-led Eurasian Economic
Union, isnt going to turn up either. And Kim Jong-un, the leader
of North Korea, has canceled, apparently after first accepting the
invitation.
Still, the leaders of China and India will attend, as will Islam
Karimov, the president of
Uzbekistan, and his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly
Berdimuhamedow, both of whom have
appalling human rights records.
But there is one European leader who had to weigh up
particularly carefully what decision to
make: Angela Merkel. The German chancellor knows all too well
the historical and present
complex relationship between Berlin and Moscowand Germanys
responsibility and culpability. She could not attend the Victory
Day Parade because of how Putin has manipulated
it. But nor could she stay away.
Instead, Merkel, whose discovery of diplomacy and foreign policy
has been the hallmark of her
third term in office, found a compromise worthy of war veterans
and the huge suffering of the
people of the Soviet Union. Merkel will travel to Moscow on May
10.
We now have very deep differences of opinion with Russia,
especially in connection with the events in Ukraine, the chancellor
said. And yet it is important for me to lay a wreath at the Tomb of
the Unknown Soldier on May 10, together with the Russian president,
to honor the
memory of the millions who died during the Second World War and
for whom Germany is
responsible.