PRESS RELEASE
Putin Honors WWII Generation, As a Responsibility to Future Generations
May 9, 2017 (EIRNS)—At the close of a military parade of over 10,000 personnel and 114 units of military equipment held to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the 1945 victory over Nazism, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a solemn, proud, and very moving address, evoking the principles upon which the heroic Russian people defeated the Nazi invasion, even at the cost of more than 26 million lives, their "irreparable sacrifices" setting the standard for the nation today, and for future generations.
"We feel a kinship and a piercing closeness to the generation of heroes and victors, and when addressing them, I will say: You will never feel ashamed of us,"
said Putin.
"The further the events of the Great Patriotic War fade into history, the greater is our responsibility to future generations. We must give them stability and peace on the planet. We must pass on to them the grave heroic truth and memory of the Great Patriotic War, the spirit and meaning of Great Victory."
Putin drew out the lessons for today.
"The triumphant victory over that terrible totalitarian force will forever remain in the history of humankind as a supreme triumph of life and reason over death and barbarity.... This monstrous tragedy was made possible primarily due to connivance to the criminal ideology of racial superiority and due to the lack of unity among the world’s leading nations,"
he said.
"This allowed the Nazis to arrogate the right to decide the destiny of other peoples, to unleash the cruelest, bloodiest war, to enslave nearly all European nations and make them serve their murderous goals."
"We will never forget that it was our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers who won back Europe’s freedom and the long-awaited peace,"
he added.
Putin spoke of how the victory was won by all of Russia’s people.
"The Great Victory was won by marshals and privates, volunteers and home front workers, partisans and the fighters of the underground. Old people and children. People of all ethnicities and trades. They all passed through the unthinkable ordeals of World War II with courage and unrivaled patience,"
he said.
"Without sleep or rest, they worked at the plants and in hospitals, they burnt in tanks, froze in trenches, drowned at river crossings, shielded their comrades in arms. They rushed into attacks realizing that the battle could be their last one. They died without learning of the Victory, yet they did all they could to bring it closer."
A short video of this thought-provoking marking of a victory so decisive to all of humanity, with its dramatic minute of silence and proud military "hurray’s" at the end, is available with English subtitles on the Kremlin website, and highly recommended.
