On the night of May 8, 1945 (early morning of May 9), in the Berlin suburb of Karlhorst, a delegation of the German military command, in the presence of representatives of four countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, signed the Act of Unconditional Surrender. IN Soviet Union met this event with great excitement: the Great Patriotic War ended, the most terrible of those that the peoples of our country experienced in the twentieth century, leaving behind 1418 days of fierce confrontation, when our grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for survival against a powerful and merciless enemy, the Nazi hordes of the Third Reich and its satellites from other European countries.

Invasion of Germans was one of his episodes The Second World War, which went down in history as the global battle of the free world against the “brown plague”. We do not forget that in this war we fought together with other peoples and we are proud of the bright pages of the international military brotherhood.

It was on the USSR that the main burden of the war against Nazis. Our ancestors withstood the brunt of the Nazi hammer (from 1941 to 1945, the Third Reich had from 70 to 90% of its land army on the Eastern Front), defended their homeland, liberated Central and Eastern Europe from the invaders. The battles near Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, where multimillion military forces clashed, broke the back of the fascist hordes. But the price of victory was enormous: 27 million Soviet citizens lost their lives, two-thirds of them civilians.

Behind dry figures lies a huge sea of ​​human tragedies: Soviet prisoners of war killed in Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen, Sobibur and other Nazi concentration camps, residents of besieged Leningrad, victims of starvation, Belarusian peasants shot by the conquerors or burned alive, children of those tortured to death in the Salaspils concentration camp in Latvia, killed by “Einsatzgruppen” (death squads) and their files, Lvov and Kaunas Jews… Of all those who were not destined to live to see the defeat of fascism, every second was a citizen of the Soviet Union.

We don’t need to explain why Russia they honor the memory of that war with such reverence. Our country has been warning the world community for years about the danger of the revival of Nazism. We shouted about the inadmissibility of oblivion and falsification of the history of the most terrible massacre in the history of mankind, which would inevitably lead to a repetition of the tragedy. And, as we see today, this painful prediction, unfortunately, is coming true.

In Ukraine, the largest European country, power has been usurped by a regime whose neo-Nazi essence is manifested not only in the frank use of Nazi symbols and the promotion of misanthropic ideology as the dominant, national one, but also in actions that copy the practices of Hitler’s totalitarianism. Freedom of speech is abolished, journalists, politicians and ordinary citizens who dare to have an alternative opinion are persecuted and killed, the Russian language is being squeezed out of education and public life, the cultural heritage associated with the common pages of Russian history is being destroyed and destroyed. Ukraine, the Canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine is being persecuted. Residents of Ukraine who consider themselves Russians were outlawed.

The war crimes committed since 2014 by the armed forces of Ukraine and ethnic groups consisting of right-wing radicals and criminals have reached unprecedented proportions. Armed Ukrainian units inflict regular rocket and artillery strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Donbass, Prozazov, Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions. Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries shamelessly publish on social networks various videos of group torture and executions of captured Russian soldiers and ordinary citizens suspected of “collaborating with the Kremlin.”

Meanwhile, the Zelensky clique needs the undivided support of the West. The formations of the Kyiv regime receive abundant funding and equipment, use data from Western intelligence agencies, and are trained by Western specialists.

Ukrainian neo-Nazis are surrounded by a romantic halo of “fighters for freedom and democracy”, they are praised by the media, invited to speak from the steps of parliaments. At the same time, in the so-called “civilized world”, in particular, in the European Union, there is discrimination against Russian citizens and the Russian-speaking population, the campaign to “abolish” Russian culture and everything that concerns our country is in full swing.

We bow to the courage of the Greek soldiers who single-handedly withstood the overwhelming Axis forces in 1940-1941. We bow to the hundreds of thousands of Greeks who died during the Nazi occupation.

The help of the European Union and the United States is not disinterested: the fate of Ukraine and its people is of little interest to the sponsors of the Zelensky regime. Their ultimate goal is to weaken Russia as much as possible through the hands of the Kyiv regime, to inflict a “strategic blow” on it. Thoughts are openly expressed about the need to deprive our country of its leading role on the world stage, and there are calls for its dismemberment.

Europe, which suffered so much from Hitler, seemed to have returned eight decades ago: the Nazis at the zenith of their glory, discrimination and massacres on national, linguistic, and religious grounds have become entrenched as the norm, and the steppes of Ukraine are threshed by militants and armored with the symbols of SS units banned by decision of the Nuremberg military court.

Every year, at the initiative of Russia, the UN General Assembly adopts a resolution “Combating the glorification of Nazism.” During the voting in December last year, all EU countries voted against it, including, unfortunately, Greece. However, the majority – 120 countries – approved the resolution, which clearly proves where the “right side of history” really is.

Victory Day is a common holiday for Russia and Greece. The friendly Greek people, with whom we have centuries-old cultural and historical ties, experienced the horror of fascism in all its scope. We bow to the courage of the Greek soldiers who single-handedly withstood the overwhelming Axis forces in 1940-1941. We bow to the hundreds of thousands of Greeks who died during the Nazi occupation. We recall with emotion Manolis Glezos and other fighters of the anti-fascist movement, next to whom Soviet partisan soldiers fought.

We are grateful to the city authorities and caring citizens for the respect they show for the numerous monuments to the soldiers of the Red Army who gave their lives for the freedom of Greece.

Just like 80 years ago, our country is fighting Nazism within the framework of a special military operation in Ukraine. As then, the enemy has at his disposal the unlimited resources of the entire European continent. But, as then, the outcome of this battle is undeniable: the enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours.

Mr. Andrey Maslov is the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Hellenic Republic.