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Revision of World War II outcome aimed at belittling Russia’s role — top diplomat

The attempts to revise the history of World War II are aimed at stripping Russia of its role as a guarantor of the post-war world order, the Russian foreign minister claimed
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Alexander Shcherbak/TASS
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
© Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

MOSCOW, September 20. /TASS/. The attempts to revise the history of World War II are aimed at stripping Russia of its role as a guarantor of the post-war world order, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in his article "World at a crossroads: The future system of international relations" published by "Russia in Global Affairs" magazine.

"Some have intensified attempts to privatize the Victory, to expunge from memory the Soviet Union’s role in the defeat of Nazism, to condemn to oblivion the Red Army’s sacrifices for others’ liberation, to forget the many millions of Soviet civilians who died during the war, to scrub away the consequences of the ruinous policy of appeasing the aggressor," Lavrov said in his article published on occasion of the opening 74th session of the UN General Assembly.

"From this perspective, it is easy to grasp the essence of the so-called equal approach to totalitarian regimes. Its purpose is not just to belittle the Soviet contribution to the Victory, but also to retrospectively strip our country of its history-assigned role as an architect and guarantor of the post-war world order, and label it a "revisionist power" that threatened the well-being of the so-called free world," Lavrov stressed.

According to Russia’s top diplomat, this kind of interpretation of the past events also means that some countries see the main achievements of the post-war system of international relations in "the establishment of a transatlantic link and the perpetuation of the US military presence in Europe." "This is definitely not at all the scenario the Allies were aiming at in establishing the United Nations," Lavrov noted.

Important anniversaries

Next year will mark high-profile and interconnected anniversaries — the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, World War II, and the establishment of the UN, Lavrov said. "Reflecting on the spiritual and moral significance of these landmark events, one needs to bear in mind the epoch-making political meaning of the Victory that ended one of the most brutal wars in the history of mankind." "The defeat of fascism in 1945 had a fundamental significance for the further course of world history and created conditions for the establishment of a post-war world order. The UN Charter became its bearing frame and a key source of international law to this day," he stressed.

Lavrov pointed out that the UN-centric system still maintains stability and has a large factor of safety, actually acting as "a safety net," "guaranteeing the peaceful development of mankind amid in many ways natural divergence of interests and rivalries among leading powers."