MINSK, May 9. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that Victory Day remains a day of national pride for Belarus.
"We remember and honor the liberators of our homeland today, and we will always remember them. Victory Day is a day of national pride. We remember our soldiers, officers, Belarusian partisans, and resistance fighters," he said.
Lukashenko arrived at the Victory Monument in the Belarusian capital to lay wreaths and flowers on Saturday evening.
Following the ceremony, the Belarusian leader said the country would do everything possible to preserve the peace achieved by veterans.
"We Belarusians have no other path but the one you have set out on - towards peace and reconstruction. We will do everything in our power to preserve the peace you have won for us," he said, addressing the veterans.
"The Victory Banner is in our hands today. As we pass it down from generation to generation, we fight on all fronts for the truth about that war, for our status as victors, and for the sovereign right to choose our own path on our own land. Belarusians, like no one else, know how quickly slogans about a ‘new order’ turn into gallows, labour camps, ruins, and nameless mass graves. And even if fascism now has a different face -- a polished one -- that does not change its essence. We see that face," Lukashenko concluded.