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Indignation in Belarus over monument to Nazi soldiers in Latvia

The Belarussian side condemns the installation of a monument to criminals who fought on the side of Nazi Germany and regards this fact as an insult to the memory of the fallen

MINSK, September 19 (Itar-Tass) — The Belarussian Foreign Ministry is outraged by the unveiling of a monument to criminals from the Latvian SS legion in the Latvian town of Bauska.

“We are indignant at the installation of a monument to the Latvian SS legion,” Andrei Savinykh, the spokesman for the Belarussian Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday. “In the years of the Second World War, criminals from that legion staged punitive operations in the Brest region of Belarus, killing Belarussian guerrillas and peaceful Belarussian people,” he said.

“It is particularly shocking that the monument was installed with connivance of the local authorities,” Savinykh noted.

He said, “Holding the ceremony of opening the monument in the presence of underage school students is a disgrace and amounts to propaganda of contemporary forms of racism and neo-Nazism among the young generation.”

“The Belarussian side condemns the installation of a monument to criminals who fought on the side of Nazi Germany and regards this fact as an insult to the memory of the fallen and encroachment on common European historic values,” the spokesman stressed.