Russia won't allow forgetting who saved world from slavery, extermination - Putin
MOSCOW. May 9 (Interfax) - Russia will not allow rewriting history and forgetting who saved the world from slavery and extermination, President Vladimir Putin said at the V-Day parade.
"Some are trying to negate the feat of the people who saved Europe and the world from slavery, extermination, and the horrors of the Holocaust; they are trying to distort events of that war, forget the real heroes, and fake, rewrite and distort history itself," Putin said.
"We will never allow doing that," he said.
Descendants will always be proud of the feat of the Soviet people who "did not back down and surrender to the cruel enemy, while some countries preferred the disgrace of capitulation, hypocritical compromise, or outright collaboration with the Nazi," he said.
Soviet people were fighting to the death, Putin said. Not any other country on earth had to deter such an invasion, he added.
"Back then, all countries and peoples knew it was the Soviet Union that determined the outcome of WWII and realized that our soldiers and our people accomplished the great and sacrificial feat. The victory was won at the cost of heavy irreplaceable losses. The honor and dignity of the homeland were protected by the exemplary courage demonstrated on the battlefield and on the Home Front," Putin said.