Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the Victory Parade on Red Square. TASS publishes the full text of his speech.
Dear citizens of Russia! Dear veterans!
Comrades soldiers and sailors, sergeants and petty officers, midshipmen and warrant officers!
Comrades officers, generals and admirals! Soldiers and commanders - participants of the special military operation!
I congratulate you on Victory Day! This holiday is in honor of our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers who glorified their names and immortalized them by defending the Fatherland. At the cost of immeasurable courage and enormous sacrifices, they saved humankind from Nazism.
Today, civilization is once again at a decisive turning point. A real war has once again been unleashed against our homeland, but we have repelled international terrorism, we will protect the inhabitants of Donbass, and we will ensure our security. For us, for Russia, there are no unfriendly, hostile nations in the West or in the East. Like the vast majority of people on the planet, we want to see a peaceful, free and stable future.
We believe that any ideology of superiority is inherently repugnant, criminal and deadly. However, the Western globalist elites still talk about their exceptionalism, pit people against each other and split societies, provoke bloody conflicts and coups, sow hatred, Russophobia, aggressive nationalism, destroy family and traditional values that make people human. And all in order to continue to dictate, to impose their will, their rights, their rules, and in fact, a system of robbery, violence and suppression on the peoples. They seem to have forgotten where the insane claims of the Nazis for world domination led to. They have forgotten who defeated this monstrous, total evil, who stood up for their native land and did not spare their lives for the liberation of the peoples of Europe.
We see how memorials to Soviet soldiers are ruthlessly and cold-bloodedly destroyed in a number of countries, monuments to great commanders are demolished, a real cult of Nazis and their accomplices is created, and the memory of genuine heroes is erased and falsified. Such desecration of the feat and victims of the victorious generation is also a crime, a blatant revanchism of those who cynically and openly prepared a new campaign against Russia, who gathered neo-Nazi scum from around the world for this purpose. Their goal - and there is nothing new here - is to achieve the disintegration and destruction of our country, to cross out the results of World War II, to finally break the system of global security and international law, to strangle any sovereign centers of development.
Excessive ambition, arrogance and permissiveness inevitably lead to tragedy. This is precisely the reason for the catastrophe that the Ukrainian people are now experiencing. They have become a hostage of the coup d'état and the criminal regime of their Western masters, a bargaining chip in the implementation of their cruel, self-serving plans. For us in Russia, the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland is sacred, we keep it in our hearts. We pay tribute to the participants in the Resistance who bravely fought against Nazism, the soldiers of the allied armies of the United States, Britain and other nations. We remember and cherish the exploits of Chinese warriors in the battle against Japanese militarism.
I am convinced that our experience of solidarity and partnership in the years of struggle against the common threat is our invaluable legacy. It is a solid pillar at a time when irreversible movement toward a more just multipolar world based on the principles of trust and indivisible security, equal opportunities for the original and free development of all countries and peoples is gaining momentum. It is very important that the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States have gathered here in Moscow today. I see it as a grateful attitude to the feat of arms of our ancestors: they fought together and won together - all the peoples of the USSR contributed to the common victory.
We will always remember this. We bow our heads before the blessed memory of all those whose lives were taken by the war, before the memory of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends. Dear citizens of Russia!
The battles decisive for the destinies of our Motherland have always become patriotic, national and sacred. We are faithful to the behests of our ancestors and understand deeply and clearly what it means to be worthy of the heights of their military, labour and moral achievements. We are proud of the participants of the special military operation, all those who are fighting on the front lines, who under fire provide for the front and save the wounded. There is no more important thing now than your combat work. The security of our country is based on you, the future of our statehood and our people depends on you. You are honorably fulfilling your military duty, fighting for Russia. Your families, children and friends are right behind you. They are waiting for you. I am sure you feel their boundless love.
The whole country has united to support our heroes. Everyone is ready to help, praying for you. Comrades! Friends! Dear veterans!
Today each of our families honors participants of the Great Patriotic War, remembers their relatives, their heroes, lays flowers at war memorials. We are standing on Red Square, on the ground which remembers the vigilantes of Yury Dolgoruky and Dmitry Donskoy, the militia of Minin and Pozharsky, the soldiers of Peter the Great and Kutuzov, and the parades of 1941 and 1945.
Today the participants of the special military operation are regular servicemen and those who joined the Armed Forces during the partial mobilization, the soldiers of the Luhansk and Donetsk corps, many volunteer combat units, employees of the Rosgvardiya, the Interior Ministry, the FSB, the Emergency Ministry and other special services and departments.
I salute you, friends! I salute all those who are fighting for Russia on the battlefield, who are now in combat duty. During the Great Patriotic War, our heroic ancestors proved that there is nothing stronger, more powerful and reliable than our unity. There is nothing in the world stronger than our love for our Motherland.
For Russia! For our valiant Armed Forces! For Victory! Hurrah!
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS