Russian embassy in Poland welcomes international participation in Russian-led VE Day rally

Society & Culture May 01, 2017, 5:47

The international motorcycle rally "Roads of Victory-to Berlin" kicked off in Moscow on April 2

WARSAW, May 1. /TASS/. The Russian Embassy in Poland welcomes international participation in the motorcycle rally "Roads of Victory-to Berlin," organized by Russia’s Night Wolves bikers, said Vladislav Vybornov, a councellor of the Consular Section of the Russian Embassy in Poland.

"We welcome and support this multinational campaign, in which citizens of Russia, Poland and other European countries are taking part," Vybornov said in a statement on behalf of the embassy.

"It is important to keep the memory of our common victory over the Nazism, about sacrifices that soldiers of the Red Army and the Polish armed forces had to make in order to liberate our countries. This is particularly important now that more and more attempts are being made to rewrite history and to erase, especially from the minds of young people, the memory about the deeds of the liberators, and to destroy monuments built in their honor," the diplomat said while greeting the rally near a WWII monument in Warsaw.

"We appreciate the stance of the Polish citizens, who oppose such illegal and immoral actions," he added.

On Sunday, Night Wolves bikers from different countries paid tribute to Polish defenders at the Unknown Soldier’s Tomb in central Warsaw and then laid flowers at the military cemetery for Soviet soldiers and observed a moment of silence.

In the past few years, Russian members of the club were not allowed to cross the border between Belarus and Poland. Polish border guards and diplomats denied them access to the European territory, citing security reasons. This year, only European members of the Night Wolves biker club crossed the border.

Club’s president Alexander Zaldostanov told reporters in the Belarusian border city of Brest that a group of bikers travelling from Kaliningrad to Poland was not allowed to enter the European Union.

The international motorcycle rally "Roads of Victory- to Berlin" kicked off in Moscow on April 27. Over the past three days, its participants have crossed the Smolensk region and Belarus.

The bikers carry the flags of Russia, Poland and other countries. They will visit Warsaw, Wroclaw and Oswiecim, and later Germany's Berlin, where the rally will be over on May 9.

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