ST. PETERSBURG, January 27. /TASS/. Nazi crimes have no statute of limitations, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a ceremony of unveiling a monument to Soviet civilians who fell victim to the Nazi genocide during World War Two.
"Our sympathy goes down from generation to generation and has no statute of limitations. Neither do the crimes committed by Hitler’s monsters and their accomplices, who cold-bloodedly plotted and brutally executed the genocide of the Soviet people," Putin said.
The president pointed out that those crimes were not committed on battlefields, but the mass executions of unarmed and defenseless women, children as well the elderly and disabled "were intentional systematic punitive actions."
According to the president, January 27 is one of the milestones in Russian history.
"On this day in 1944, the Red Army completely broke the siege of Leningrad. A year later, in 1945, they liberated Auschwitz. Not only were these two events in the same historical era. The tragedy of martyrdom of Leningraders as well as prisoners of death camps will forever go down as evidence of the monstrous nature of Nazism and the unthinkable suffering of millions of innocent civilians," he said.
Putin added that over the past eight decades "our pain for those horrifying victims, for the maimed lives and for all those who went through such ordeals has never subsided.".