By H.E. Mr. Vladimir Tarabrin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The 9th of May 2025 marks 80 years since the day of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War – a Victory that saved Europe from the darkness of fascism, oppression and extermination of millions of people.
For all countries of the former Soviet Union, May 9, 1945 is not just a historical date. Our compatriots who look today at the famous photograph by the Soviet war correspondent Evgeny Khaldei “The Victory Banner over the Reichstag” sees in it the history of their ancestors. Behind the Victory Banner there are more than 27 million human lives that our country lost, thousands of destroyed cities and ruined villages.
The Great Patriotic War has become for us a wound that can’t heal. In every Russian city and town you will find a monument to the fallen Soviet soldiers. Any person can tell you a story about his or her relatives’ life during the War – where they fought, how they suffered in Nazi captivity and concentration camps, helped the wounded or worked 12-hour shifts in the frozen workshops of the Urals and Siberian defense factories.
In Europe today, this is perceived quite differently – people are usually not very familiar with the events that took place on the Eastern Front during the World War II (as the Great Patriotic War is called here). Some have heard about the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, but the names of Rzhev or the Siege of Leningrad are much less common even in historical literature.
And almost certainly only few people here know the true price of European freedom – the Red Army paid for it with the lives of more than one million soldiers. During the liberation of Poland alone, 600 thousands of the Red Army soldiers died. 140 thousands died for Hungary, and another 140 thousands – for Czechoslovakia. These days these facts are often hushed up or, even worse, distorted – and liberation is being labeled “occupation”. That is why Russia’s primary task is to defend the historical truth and protect the memory of our ancestors.
I would also like to remind you that, having attacked the Soviet Union, the Nazi Germany began the deliberate expulsion and extermination of the local population – all of this was documented and established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Russia calls on the international community to recognize this as a fact of genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union. We will work tirelessly, including in the UN, to achieve justice for the memory of the millions of our dead.
This year, the Netherlands is also celebrating the 80th anniversary of the liberation from the Nazi invaders. And we remember what the Dutch people endured during the occupation – the brutality of the Gestapo, mass deportations of the Jewish population to concentration camps, the bombing of Rotterdam and Nijmegen. We also remember what the Nazis did to the Soviet prisoners of war in concentration camps. These atrocities are the subject of an exhibition at the newly opened museum at the “Soviet Field of Glory” Memorial Cemetery near Leusden.
I am glad that there are people in the Netherlands who do not forget the role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazism.
Unfortunately, today we see that in many European countries that suffered greatly from the Nazi occupation, the lessons of that terrible war are being revised and forgotten. Russia cannot allow this to happen, and we will do everything to resist it. This is our duty, both to ourselves and to future generations.
