Even during commemorations, this is not the time for peace.
Vladimir Putin on Friday accused "neo-Nazis in Ukraine" of committing crimes against civilians, while speaking on the occasion of the International Day of Victims of the Holocaust.
“Forgetting the lessons of history leads to the repetition of terrible tragedies.
The proof of this is the crimes against civilians, the ethnic cleansing (and) the punitive actions organized by neo-Nazis in Ukraine,” Vladimir Putin denounced in a press release.
"It is against this evil that our soldiers are fighting courageously" in Ukraine, he added.
A “genocide” of the Russian-speaking populations
This rhetoric is not new, the Russian president uses it regularly to justify his military offensive, which began in February 2022. Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denounced "the genocide" according to him of the Russian-speaking populations of eastern Ukraine and qualified Volodymyr Zelensky's "neo-Nazi" regime.
"Any attempt to revise our country's contribution to the Great Victory (during the Second World War) actually amounts to justifying the crimes of Nazism, opens the way to the revival of its murderous ideology", hammered the Russian president in this press release published by the Kremlin.
Read also “Nazi” Ukraine?
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Vladimir Putin also mourned "the millions of innocent dead - Jews, representatives of other nationalities - who were slaughtered, tortured, who died of starvation and disease" during the Holocaust.
Unusually this year, due to the conflict with Ukraine according to Warsaw, Russian representatives were not invited to the celebrations of the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in the south of Poland.
Until now, Russia had always taken part in the ceremonies held annually on January 27.
"Indifference kills, just as much as hatred", insists Zelensky
kyiv also did not fail to mark this day, placed under the sign of meditation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released an address on Friday morning in which he “honors the memory of millions of victims of the Holocaust”.
Today Ukraine honors the memory of millions of victims of the Holocaust.
We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred.
That is why it is so important that everyone who values life should show determination.
Eternal memory to all victims of the Holocaust!
pic.twitter.com/GaN6g1aTe1
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 27, 2023
“We know and remember that indifference kills just as much as hate.
That's why it's so important that everyone who appreciates life for what it's worth shows determination,” he said.
