In 2020, the peoples of the world celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Victory over Nazism in World War II.
For the CSTO member states, this is a special commemorative date of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of the peoples of the Soviet Union, whose contribution became decisive in the outcome of the entire World War II. The deed in a war that claimed the lives of more than twenty-seven million sons and daughters of our peoples will forever remain in the generations’ memory.
More than one million of our soldiers gave their lives, liberating the European countries from Nazi enslavement. Numerous military burials, memorials, monuments, steles, obelisks on the territories of the states of modern Europe keep the memory of the utmost heroism and self-sacrifice of representatives of all our peoples, regardless of nationality, citizenship, and religion. Diminishing the significance of their deed is unacceptable.
Being conscious of the enormous debt we owe to the fallen in the fight against Nazism and its victims, following on the principles of protecting historical truth, the provisions of international legal acts adopted after World War II, we urge the parliaments of the member states of the Council of Europe to take following measures at the legislative level:
- to counteract the revival and encouragement of Nazism and its manifestations in modern Europe;
- to protect the historical truth about World War II, to combat attempts to revise its results, to diminish the decisive role of the peoples of the Soviet Union in the Victory;
- to prevent the desecration of graves of participants in the fight against Nazism and military burial places, vandalism against monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators, harassing of veterans, trampling the honor of those who died and were tortured to death in extermination camps;
- to stop any attempt to justify the Nazis and their accomplices who committed the most serious crimes during World War II, the actions of their followers, the denial or distortion of the decisions of the International Military Tribunal in relation to the prosecution and punishment of the main war criminals of the European Axis Alliance.
It is our common duty to preserve the memory of the Great Victory, which unites all the peoples that defeated Nazism together, to honor the memory of those without whom the Victory would have been impossible, who gave their lives in the name of the freedom of peoples, for the sake of your future.
The consolidation of the entire international community is crucial for counteracting the resurgence of Nazism.
