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USSR pays highest price for Victory in WWII — Brazilian minister

Brazil’s Defence Minister Jaques Wagner would participate in the celebration in Moscow on May 9 on behalf of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, the ministry’s communique says
Monument dedicated to the memory of soldiers who died for their country  ITAR-TASS/Pavel Golovkin
Monument dedicated to the memory of soldiers who died for their country
© ITAR-TASS/Pavel Golovkin

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 6. /TASS/. The Soviet people paid the highest price for the Victory in World War II as 27 million people, including 7.5 million military, were killed, Brazil’s Defence Minister Jaques Wagner said in the ministry’s communique published on Tuesday.

The victory, which is celebrated these days, "resulted from the international brotherhood of the peoples in their aspiration for freedom, democracy, independence and justice," the document reads.

Wagner said "Brazil is proud to celebrate the 70th jubilee of the Victory." The Brazilian expeditionary corps, which was fighting in Italy between September 1944 and April 1945, "made a big input" in the Victory "over tyranny and intolerance." The corps’ military "became heroes of the war, which united various countries in fighting tyranny," the communique reads.

The document also says Wagner would participate in the celebration in Moscow on May 9 on behalf of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. On May 9, the defence minister will arrive in Italy, where he will lay flowers to the grave of Unknown Soldier and to the monument to the Brazilian expedition corps.

Over 25,000 Brazilian military were in the corps, and 460 of them died in fighting, about 2,000 died of wounds. Over one thousand Brazilian sailors died in World War II.

Brazil is the only South American country, which participated in the military actions of World War II as it joined the coalition on August 22, 1942.