Vladimir Putin delivered a speech during the annual parade on Victory Day. He devoted most of his time to the war in Ukraine and the “Western globalist elites”, mentioning the Great Patriotic War only in a few digressions.
Mediazona quotes the President’s speech in full, highlighting fragments relating to the Great Patriotic War:
“Dear citizens of Russia, dear veterans, fellow soldiers and sailors, sergeants and foremen, midshipmen and warrant officers, comrade officers, generals and admirals, soldiers and commanders, participants in a special military operation.I congratulate you on the occasion! Happy Victory Day! With a holiday in honor of our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, who glorified and immortalized their names, having defended the fatherland at the cost of immeasurable courage and huge sacrifices, saved humanity from Nazism.Today, civilization is once again at a decisive turning point. A real war has once again been unleashed against our homeland. We have rebuffed international terrorism, we will protect the inhabitants of Donbass, we will ensure our security. For us, for Russia, there are no unfriendly hostile peoples either in the West or in the East. Like the vast majority of people on the planet, we want to see a future of peace, freedom and stability. We believe that any ideology of superiority is inherently disgusting, criminal and deadly.
However, the Western globalist elites still talk about their exclusivity, pit people and split society, provoke bloody conflicts and upheavals, sow hatred, Russophobia, and aggressive nationalism. Family traditional values that make a person a person are also being destroyed. And all in order to continue to dictate, to impose on the peoples their will, their rights, rules, and, in fact, a system of robbery, violence and suppression.
They seem to have forgotten what the insane claims of the Nazis for world domination led to. They forgot who defeated this monstrous total evil, who stood up as a wall for their native land and did not spare their lives for the sake of the liberation of the peoples of Europe. We see how, in a number of countries, memorials to Soviet soldiers are ruthlessly and cold-bloodedly destroyed, monuments to great commanders are being demolished, a real cult of the Nazis and their accomplices is being created, and the memory of true heroes is being erased and slandered. Such desecration of the feat and victims of the victorious generation is also a crime.
Frank revanchism of those who cynically and openly prepared a new campaign against Russia. Who gathered neo-Nazi scum from all over the world for this. Their goal — and there is nothing new here — is to achieve the collapse and destruction of our country, cross out the results of the Second World War, finally break the system of global security and international law, and strangle any sovereign centers of development.
Exorbitant ambitions, arrogance and permissiveness inevitably turn into tragedies. This is the reason for the catastrophe that the Ukrainian people are now experiencing. He became a hostage of the coup d'état and the criminal regime of his Western masters that had developed on its basis, a bargaining chip in the implementation of their cruel selfish plans.
For us in Russia, the memory of the defenders of the fatherland is sacred. We keep her in our hearts. We pay tribute to the participants in the resistance who bravely fought against Nazism, to the soldiers of the allied armies of the USA, Great Britain and other states. We remember and honor the feat of the Chinese soldiers in the battle against Japanese militarism. I am convinced that the experience of solidarity and partnership during the years of struggle against a common threat is our invaluable heritage — a strong support. Right now, when irreversible movements towards a more just multipolar world based on the principles of trust and indivisible security, equal opportunities for the original and free development of all countries and peoples are gaining momentum, it is very important that the leaders of the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States have gathered here in Moscow today. I see in this a grateful attitude to the feat of our ancestors. They fought together and won together. All the peoples of the USSR contributed to the common victory. We will always remember this. We bow our heads before the blessed memory of all whose lives were taken by the war. Before the memory of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, relatives, friends. A moment of silence is announced.
The battles that decide the fate of our country have always become domestic, popular and sacred. We are faithful to the precepts of our ancestors, deeply and clearly understand what it means to be worthy of the height of their military, labor and moral achievements. We are proud of the participants in the special military operation, everyone who fights on the front line, who provides the front under fire, and rescues the wounded. There is no more important thing now than your combat work. The security of the country rests on you today. The future of our statehood and our people depends on you. You are honorably fulfilling your military duty, fighting for Russia. Your families, children, friends are behind you. They are waiting for you. I am sure you feel their boundless love. The whole country rallied to support our heroes. Everyone is ready to help. They pray for you.
Comrades, friends, dear veterans, today in each of our families the participants of the Great Patriotic War are honored, they remember their relatives, their heroes. They lay flowers at military memorials. We are standing on Red Square, on Earth that remembers the combatants Yuri Dolgoruky and Dmitry Donskoy, the militiamen Minin and Pozharsky, the soldiers of Peter the Great and Kutuzov, the parades of 1941 and 1945. Today, participants in a special military operation are here. These are regular military personnel and those who joined the ranks of the armed forces during partial mobilization. These are fighters from the Lugansk and Donetsk corps, many volunteer combat formations, employees of the Russian Guard, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and other special services and departments. Greetings, friends. I greet everyone who is fighting for Russia on the battlefield, who is now on a combat post.
During the Great Patriotic War, our heroic ancestors proved that there is nothing stronger, more powerful and more reliable than our unity. There is nothing in the world stronger than our love for the motherland. For Russia! For our valiant armed forces! For victory! Hooray!»