The Russian MFA will continue to counter tendencies to rewrite the history of World War II and will not allow discrediting the honor of the Soviet victorious soldiers. The statement is made in the opening remarks by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the 15th volume of the publication project "The History Told by the People," the text of which was published on the website of the Russian diplomatic mission on Monday.
"The work done is all the more in demand because today in a number of European countries, especially in Ukraine and the Baltics states, the course of rewriting history and justifying the bloody crimes of the Nazis and their henchmen is intensifying. The decisive role of our country in the defeat of Nazism is being denied. The purpose of such actions is not only to smear modern Russia as a successor of the USSR, but also to reconsider the universally recognized international legal outcomes of World War II, including the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal," the minister said.
"In this regard, the Russian foreign ministry will continue to uncompromisingly oppose these dangerous trends and actively contribute to the preservation of historical truth and its transmission to future generations in an unadulterated form. We will not allow anyone to besmirch the honor and good name of the victorious soldiers.
The foreign minister emphasized that the volume of "The History Told by the People" is timed to the 220th anniversary of the Russian diplomatic mission. "Its heroes are Soviet diplomats during the war years. In the first months after the German attack, more than 160 employees of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs signed up for the people's militia. They went to the front, took part in the Battle of Moscow. Many of them died heroes. Today, their names are inscribed on a memorial plaque in the building of the foreign ministry," said Lavrov. - "Others, sparing no effort, did all they could to create and strengthen the anti-Hitler coalition, bring closer the date of opening a second front, and form the postwar global security architecture, including the establishment of the United Nations. All of them honorably and to the end fulfilled their professional and human duty to the motherland".
As the Russian minister noted, the book is based on unique documents, which were found and collected bit by bit. "The council of veterans and the historical and documentary department of our ministry made a significant contribution to the overall effort. The authors had a very noble goal - to show the Great Patriotic War through the prism of human destinies, based on materials from personal and family archives - thousands of photos, documents, stories and memories. Such an idea and its implementation strike with scientific depth and powerful emotional charge", summarized Lavrov.
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Photo: Akishin Vyacheslav/Creative Commons 2.0
Based on materials from TASS