Russia hopes that its initiative to recognize the victory over Nazism as global heritage will be adopted as soon as possible, said Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament.
Matviyenko voiced the initiative at a meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.on June 6, saying that the Federation Council would file a request to the international organization. The UN Secretary General, in his turn, expressed his concern about the current growth of neo-Nazi sentiments.
“We must continue cherishing the historic truth, to pass it from generation to generation in full, without concealing or embellishing anything,” she said.
June 22, the day when the Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 began, is marked as the Day of Memory and Sorrow in Russia.
The Great Patriotic War lasted 1,418 days. A total of 27 million Soviet people were killed, including 18 million civilians and 8.7 million servicemen. Four million people were tortured and killed at Nazi death camps. Some 4.5 million Red Army soldiers and officers were captured, and 2.5 million of them died in captivity.
