MOSCOW, May 9. /TASS/. It was the Soviet Union that determined the outcome of World War Two and Russia will resist attempts to deny this feat, President Vladimir Putin said at the military parade on Red Square devoted to the 73rd anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
"Today there are attempts to deny the feat of the people, which saved Europe and the world from slavery, from extermination and from the horrors of the Holocaust, and attempts to bury in oblivion the authenticity of the heroes, falsify, re-write and distort the entire history," the Russian president said.
"We will never allow this," Putin stressed.
The defeat of Nazis became a grandiose victory, the Russian leader said.
"This long-waited word immediately spread across the planet and all the countries and all the peoples understood then that it was the Soviet Union that decided the outcome of World War Two and that this great sacrificed deed was made by our soldier and our people," the Russian leader stressed, noting that it had cost the country irretrievable losses.
That is why, it is our duty to keep the memory about the valor of soldiers who gave their lives for the sake of the lives of others, about all the courageous combatants of the Second Front and the contribution by the anti-Hitler coalition countries to the victory, about the brotherhood in arms of those who fought against Nazism, Putin pointed out.
As the Russian leader said, "the country will always be proud that the Soviet people did not falter and did not give in to the cruel enemy when some countries preferred the disgrace of capitulation and the hypocritical compromise or direct collaboration with the Nazis."
As the Russian president emphasized, it was the Soviet people, which fought to death while no other country in the world repelled such an invasion and carried out the evacuation of millions of people and thousands of factories under the aggressor’s fire.
These factories started rolling out military hardware and ammunition for the front actually while on the move, Putin siad.
"Actually impossible things were done: no one thought about himself and both women and children were working heroically. For the sake of their Motherland, for the sake of the victory and for the sake of those who were defending the country, their families in the heat of the war," Putin said.
The Soviet troops won victories in the decisive battles of Moscow and Stalingrad, in the battles near Kursk and on the Dnieper River, broke the siege of Leningrad, liberated European capitals and seized Berlin in a crucial offensive, the Russian leader said.