Dear friends!

Accept our sincerest congratulations on the occasion of the 75^th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War!

Looking back on the turbulent war years, we understand the great significance of the lessons we all learned from the past for present day. World War II, which involved states with almost 80% world population, was a disaster for the whole mankind. Flames of war reached Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania. Many countries were occupied. Various estimations reveal that the war claimed from 50 to 80 million people, both military and civilians.

The Soviet Union took the brunt of the enemy’s aggression. The Eastern Front pinned the main Axis forces for almost 4 years, elite Nazi troops were concentrated there. 190 to 270 most capable Wehrmacht divisions operated against Soviet troops, or 3/4 of their total quantity. Nazis suffered 85% of military losses in confrontation with the USSR. And it was the Red Army which brought the war against Nazi Germany to a victorious end resulting from the shattering assault of Berlin and the liberation of Prague.

The Victory was achieved at a heavy price. The total human losses of the USSR during the war amounted to 26,6 million people. Among these are soldiers and partisans who were killed in battles and died from wounds, Soviet civilians starved to death, bombing and shelling victims, prisoners of war, communists and Komsomol activists shot by death-squads and tortured to death in concentration camps. Thus only 4 men out of every 100 born in 1920-1924, who left for the front, came back home alive.

The war came to every single household. Every family has its own heroes, relatives who never returned from the front. In Russia pride of the Victory is passed down through generations together with the pain of losses.

Nevertheless, we do not forget that the victory in World War II was reached by joint efforts of all countries of Anti-Hitler coalition. A considerable contribution was made by the western allies – Great Britain, the United States, France as well as anti-fascist underground, partisans, resistance movements in various countries. “We are not dividing the Victory into ours and someone else’s”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted in this regard.

We invite you to familiarize yourselves with online photo exhibition created with a hope to remind of the key milestones of the difficult path to the Victory and the sacrifices for the sake of exterminating a criminal ideology of hatred towards people.

Click here to go to the picture galleries.

 

Ilya Rogachev

Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of South Africa and the Kingdom of Lesotho