78 years ago in Karlshorst, the suburb of Berlin, the act of capitulation of Nazi Germany in the Second World war was signed. On every May 9 of each of these years my country celebrates and remembers. We pay tribute to the people of the Soviet Union who prevailed in the most horrible war in history, having liberated most of Europe from the scourge of Nazism. The price of victory was enormous – 27 million Soviet men, women and children were killed at the battlefield, died of bombs, strain and hunger, perished in the Nazi concentration camps. We remember and honour men and women of the Allied forces who fought shoulder to shoulder with us in our common struggle with the Hitler regime. We will not forget brave Irish who sailed perilous seas as a part of the “Northern convoys”. We also know that it was the Red Army that carried the main burden of the fight against fascism – up to the three quarters of the Third Reich armed forces were concentrated at the Eastern Front and there they were demolished. For our people memory of that war and that Victory is sacred.
One would assume that cruel lessons of the World War II – including the prewar period – were learned. Apparently, that is not the case with the West. Nazi ideology, the idea of one race or nationality being superior to all others once again re-emerge in Europe, most notably in Ukraine. Over the recent years the US, NATO and EU political elites have nurtured another ram against Russia (lets be honest – much like in the 1930s with Hitler), this time in the form of ultranationalist, rusophobic regime in Kiev, which is bent on eradicating all things and thoughts Russian, praising Hitler’s collaborators as national heroes of Ukraine, waging war on dissenting Donbass. Yet again Russia’s proposals on collective security in Europe and political settlement in the Eastern Ukraine have been ignored and rejected. The West has opted for the new “Drang nach Osten”. That is immoral, irresponsible and senseless policy as well as strategic mistake. One of the most important lessons of the Great Victory of 1945 is that policy of using odious regimes against Russia will inevitably fail – it did not work then, it will not work now.
