🗓 Today marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the prisoners of the Auschwitz (Oswiecim) concentration camp by the Red Army soldiers. According to available data, at least 1.3 million people were imprisoned at the camp over the period of its existence, about 1.1 million of whom were exterminated. This “factory of death” became one of the symbols of the Nazi atrocities.
After three days of fighting on the outskirts of Oswiecim in the night of 27 January 1945 the Red Army completely liberated the city and opened the gates of the concentration camp, whose prisoners cried tears of joy as they welcomed the Soviet liberators. Part of the camp was immediately transformed into a therapeutic hospital. In total, more than 7000 camp inmates were rescued that day.
✏ In 2005, Resolution 60/7 “Holocaust remembrance” adopted by the UN General Assembly and co-sponsored by Russia, proclaimed this date the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
❗We will always remember the heroic act of Soviet soldiers. Attempts made by representatives of the European institutions every year to silence the role of the Red Army in the liberation of Auschwitz are futile. Russia will continue to cherish the memory of the Second World War and to defend the historical truth.
#NoStatuteOfLimitations#WeRemember#Victory80
🕯On August 6, 1945, exactly 80 years ago, humanity witnessed one of the most horrific events in history, when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, targeting civilians for the first time.
◼️ At 8.15 am the hands of the clock in Hiroshima stood still. The “Little Boy” atomic bomb, weighing 4.4 tons, exploded at an altitude of 576 metres above ground, instantly incinerating over 80'000 people. The temperature at the epicentre of the explosion reached nearly 4'000 degrees Celsius, destroying everything within an 800-metre radius. Tens of thousands more residents of the city died in the following months from radiation sickness and other impacts of radiation exposure.
The development of the deadly weapon commenced in the United States as early as 1939, before the launch of the secret Manhattan Project in 1942, led by nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie R. Groves, Jr. The creation of the nuclear arsenal cost a staggering $2 billion (equivalent to roughly $45 billion today), and involved more than 130'000 specialists. The US leadership sought to acquire an ultimate weapon that would enable them to impose their will on the entire world.
By the summer of 1945, three atomic bombs had been produced: the “Gadget” for testing, the “Little Boy,” and the “Fat Man”. The latter two were designed to intimidate Japan and to showcase the growing power of the United States to the Soviet Union.
☝️ Western historians are still trying to justify this barbaric act as necessary to force Japan to surrender. However, by early August 1945, the Japanese troops were already on the brink of exhaustion, and the Soviet Union’s entry into the war on August 8 played a key role in defeating militarist Japan.
The bombing of Hiroshima was a brutal demonstration of American force in an attempt to justify the huge financial investment in the nuclear programme.
🕯 Survivors of the atomic bombing, known in Japan as “hibakusha” (literally, “people affected by exposure”), lived for decades with severe physical and psychological consequences. According to Japan’s Health Ministry, approximately 200'000 Hibakusha were still alive in 2012.
💬 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:
To this day, the terrible death of innocent civilians strikes a chord with millions of people on our planet. It is hard to fullyunderstand what the masterminds and perpetrators of such an inhumane act were guided by.
(excerpt from Sergey Lavrov’s message to the participants of the memorial ceremony in Hiroshima on the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing).
Neither President Harry Truman nor his successors ever apologised for the suffering inflicted on the residents of Hiroshima and their descendants. Moreover, Japanese officials have chosen to silence the fact that the United States was responsible for the tragedy.
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
🥇 The 872-day Siege of Leningrad was a harrowing ordeal for everyone who remained in the city. However, each resident of Leningrad contributed to the future victory through their hard work and fortitude. Every citizen, both young and old, actively participated in the defence of the city, extinguishing fires, clearing rubble, building fortifications, working at industrial enterprises, and helping the wounded.
❗️ All this happened against the backdrop of terrible exhaustionfrom hunger and constant shelling by the enemy.
Children's diaries have a unique place in commemorating the resilience of ordinary people whose will to live triumphed over the oppression of the Third Reich. During this difficult time, some of the city’s children documented on paper the terrible events they witnessed day by day.
🕯 The most famous of these diaries was Tanya Savicheva's notebook, where six out of nine pages chronicle the dates of her relatives' deaths: her mother, grandmother, sister, brother and two uncles. Tragically, Tanya herself died during evacuation in the Gorky Region on July 1, 1944, at the age of 14.
Keeping a diary helped these children cope with anxiety, fear and loss. Under the onslaught of hunger, constant shelling and bombing, and the death of loved ones, a piece of paper and a pencil provided solace and support. These written accounts offer invaluable insights into the experiences of people during those terrible 872 days of the Siege.
📚 Today, on the 80th Anniversary of the lifting of the Siege, we share excerpts from the diaries of children who witnessed those tragic events.
#WeRemember
🗓 April 4 marks the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Bratislava from Nazi invaders, expelled from the capital of Slovakia as a result of the Bratislava-Brno offensive operation (March 25 – May 5, 1945), which involved units of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, commanded by Marshal Rodion Malinovsky.
💬 Marshal Matvey Zakharov, Chief of Staff of the 2nd Ukrainian Front:
Before advancing on Bratislava, the front’s command established communications with Slovak partisans, who proved invaluable. They provided crucial intelligence about the German fortification system, plans for defending specific cities, as well as the strength and organisation of the enemy forces.
🏅 On March 25, Soviet forces launched an offensive on the heavily fortified city. In an effort to minimise civilian casualties and destruction, the Soviet high command opted not to use large-calibre artillery systems, primarily deploying assault infantry units instead.
By April 2, Soviet forces had entered the eastern and north-eastern districts of the city. On April 4, Red Army forces reached Bratislavsky Hrad, a fortress in central Bratislava, where the remaining German garrison was holed up. The city fell by the end of the day, with scattered Nazi units retreating towards Vienna.
Soviet authorities immediately began efforts to restore normal life in the city. Archive documents from the Russian Defence Ministry, declassified ahead of the 75th Anniversary of Bratislava’s liberation, indicate that rubble and debris had been cleared from the city’s central streets and squares by April 10, 1945. The sewage system was reactivated, and people began returning to their homes from nearby villages.
As a result of the Bratislava-Brno operation, the forces of the 2nd Ukrainian Front advanced 200 km, destroyed 9 Wehrmacht divisions and created conditions for further offensive operations towards Prague and Vienna.
The military units that distinguished themselves in the battles for the city were awarded the honorary title of "Bratislava".
A total of 6'845 Soviet officers and soldiers lost their lives while fighting in Bratislava, most of whom are buried at the Slavin military memorial complex in the centre of the Slovak capital.
Every year on April 4, this complex hosts commemorative events dedicated to the city’s liberation from Nazi invaders, with participation from Russian representatives. This year, a delegation of students from MGIMO University will take part in the event.
In total, 63'518 Red Army officers and soldiers were killed while liberating Slovakia.
***
⚔️ Simultaneously, the forces of the 3rd Ukrainian Front halted a major German offensive south of Lake Balaton in Hungary, where the German high command had deployed its best remaining tank units, amid fierce and brutal fighting.
The Red Army pursued the retreating enemy units and completely liberated Hungary by April 4.
The Wehrmacht’s further resistance was futile from a military and strategic perspective, serving only as an attempt by Hitler and his inner circle to delay their inevitable downfall by sacrificing the lives of hundreds of thousands of their compatriots.
🕯Over 140'000 Soviet officers and soldiers were killed or went missing while liberating Hungary. There are 1'231 Russian (Soviet) burial sites in the country, including 1'036 that date back to the World War II period.
#Victory80
Today Russia stands for the first time in solemn remembrance of the victims of the Nazi genocide against the Soviet people — the systematic slaughter carried out during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
President Vladimir Putin’s decree of December 29, 2025, and Federal Law No. 74-FZ have made it official. April 19 was chosen for a reason: on this day in 1943 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued Decree No. 39, declaring that Nazi crimes and those of their local collaborators would never be forgotten or forgiven.
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
This was never just another war of conquest. The top Nazis saw Soviet territory right up to the Urals as their Lebensraum — living space to be cleared of “subhumans” (Slavs, Roma, Asians) and colonised by the "master race". The blueprints were already drawn before the first shot was fired: the Hunger Plan to starve 30 million in the first winter alone, and Generalplan Ost to Germanise the entire conquered east.
They didn’t succeed in full, but the horror they unleashed still defies belief. Over three million Soviet prisoners of war were deliberately worked or starved to death. Nearly a million perished in the siege of Leningrad. Countless civilians in the occupied zones were left to die of engineered famine. Soviet women shipped west as Ostarbeiter faced forced abortions. Children showing “Aryan” features were stolen from their families for Germanisation.
The final count is staggering: 13.7 million murdered under the direct policy of racial destruction, another five million from the deliberate famine strategy. Every single region of Russia that suffered under the Nazi boot has now confirmed these facts in its own courts.
Russia’s diplomats will now press the international community to recognise this campaign for what it was: genocide against the Soviet people. The truth is already on record in key CIS and CSTO documents.
As Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said today: preserving the memory of these millions of victims is our sacred duty. We will not allow those atrocities to be erased — no matter how loudly today’s apostles of racial superiority and historical revisionism try to drag Europe back down that same dark road.
The Russian people paid with rivers of blood to crush the fascist beast. That sacrifice will not be buried. The memory stands as both tribute and warning.
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@RusEmbMalta: #Euromaidan: “revolution of dignity” or Western “anti-Russia” project?
🖋️Article by Andrey Lopukhov, Ambassador of Russia to Malta.
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
#LestWeForget
◼️ June 22 is the #DayOfMemoryAndSorrow in Russia, the the most tragic date in the modern history of our country.
On this day 8️⃣4️⃣ years ago — on June 22, 1941 — the Soviet Union was attacked, unprovoked and without a declaration of war, by the Nazi Germany and its European cronies, which unleashed the full might of its vicious war machine. For our people on that day the Great Patriotic War began — the bloodiest and most brutal, devastating and terrible war, which lasted 1418 days and claimed lives of some 27 million Soviet citizens.
Obsessed with the ideas of racial superiority, the Hitlerites and their henchmen in Europe planned to wipe entire nations off the face of the Earth, and the survivors left — to turn into slaves of the Third Reich. The Germans invaded our country with one goal — to physically annihilate the Soviet people, to destroy our nation's centuries-old cultural and spiritual heritage — the Nazis and their allies carried out a genocide.
2️⃣2️⃣.0️⃣6️⃣.1️⃣9️⃣4️⃣1️⃣
At dawn at 4 am, the enemy aviation launched massive strikes on airfields, railway stations, Soviet naval bases, deployments of the Red Army forces and cities along the entire western state border of the USSR to a depth of up to 250-300 km. Together with Nazi Germany,Romania, Italy, Finland and other states allied to the Third Reich took part in the aggression. The industries of almost the entire continental Europe served the aggressors.
The people of the USSR were informed on the radio about the attack by the Nazis and, thus, the beginning of the war. At noon on June 22, 1941, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, on behalf of the Soviet leadership addressed the nation:
🎙 "Today, at 4 a.m. in the morning, the German troops have invaded our country, without making any demands on the Soviet Union and without a declaration of war. They have attacked our borders in many places and have subjected our towns to aerial bombardments.
This unheard-of attack on our nation, despite the non-aggression Treaty between the USSR and Germany, is unprecedented in the history of civilized nations."<...>
Our cause is right. The enemy shall be defeated. Victory will be ours!"
It was the Soviet Union that bore the main burden of the Nazi aggression in Europe. It was the Soviet Victorious People who showed unparalleled heroism, courage and fortitude, fighting to the last drop of blood for the freedom of our Motherland, crushed Nazism and saved Europe from the Nazi 'plague'. It was on the Eastern Front of the European theater of #WWII that the Nazis and their henchmen lost more than 75% of their forces fighting the Red Army.
🌟 The Great Victory was achieved at a high price. The Soviet Union's losses amounted to 40% of all human casualties during WWII — almost 27 million people. Of these, more than 8.7 million perished on the battlefield, 7.42 million people were deliberately and cold-bloodedly killed by the Nazis. Over 5 million Soviet citizens were taken into slavery and moved to Germany and Reich-occupied European countries.
To this day June 22 still echoes in the hearts of all Russians with grief, sorrow and pain for the lives lost and fates of entire generations broken. There is no family in our country and in the former Republics of the Soviet Union that was not affected by that terrible war. There is #NoStatuteOfLimitations for the crimes committed by the Nazis and their collaborators on our land. On this day, we bow our heads in memory of our ancestors who perished during the Great Patriotic War.
🎙 Excerpt from the comment by Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the occasion of the Day of Memory and Sorrow(June 21, 2025):
💬 "Unlike the "collective West", we do not divide the victims of the Nazis into categories — they all deserve justice and for their executioners to be punished.
We, regardless of race, nationality and religion, mourn the 2.6 million Jewish citizens of the USSR, millions of Slavs and representatives of other ethnic groups of the multinational Soviet people who became victims of genocide".
@RusEmbMalta Press release.
🗓 On March 24, 1999, the North Atlantic bloc started bombing Yugoslavia. The "military operation" against a sovereign state became a tragic milestone in the life of the Serbian people and delivered a devastating blow to international law.
The US and its cronies bombed the cities, including Belgrade, villages & civilian infrastructure for 78 days, blowing up bridges, passenger trains and buses and killing women, children & elderly people. In doing so, the West destroyed the post-WWII foundations of European security and started replacing the legitimate mechanisms that regulated international relations with a “rules-based order”.
▪️ 3'000 cruise missiles were fired at a sovereign European republic & 80'000 tonnes of aerial bombs rained down on its people.
The use of depleted uranium ammunition contaminated vast areas & caused an unprecedented rise in cancer-related diseases that continues to affect people to this day.
More than 200.000 non-Albanian residents of Kosovo, forced to flee their homes, have yet to return.
Under the cover of NATO's aggression, members of the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army" committed heinous crimes, including the abduction and murder of Serbs for the illegal trade of human organs.
❗️None of the NATO representatives has been called to account. The victims of the aggression were written off as “collateral damage,” meaning losses that "accompany" the fulfillment of the geopolitical ambitions of the US, the UK, and their satellites.
💬 From the briefing by Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, (Moscow, March 20, 2025):
NATO’s “humanitarian intervention” can serve as an example of modern barbarity and the rule-based world order and its backbone value: unfounded belief in its own superiority. <...> This is what Western democracy and freedoms look like. This view is still dominating in the West, where thousands of killed Yugoslavian civilians, including 89 children, are cynically called collateral damage. This is democracy with freedom of speech.
The issue of the NATO allies’ responsibility for the damage they have done to international relations and Yugoslavia remains unresolved.
🕯 The brutal operation carried out against sovereign Yugoslavia 26 years ago is a tragedy inflicted upon the people of Yugoslavia by NATO warmongers with lasting and multifaceted consequences.
#WeRemember#Yugoslavia1999
🗓 On June 8, 1920 — 104 years ago — the most successful ace pilot of the Anti-Hitler Coalition, Three-time Hero of the Soviet Union and to Marshal of Air Forces Ivan Kozhedub was born.
⚔️ Ivan Kozhedub achieved his first aerial victory at the age of 23, on July 6, 1943, during the Battle of Kursk. During his 40th combat sortie at Kursk, he engaged in a battle 12 enemy aircraft and shot down a Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive-bomber, followed by another Stuka on July 7. On July 9, 1943, Kozhedub destroyed two Messerschmitt Me-109 fighters.
On October 1-12, 1943, he shot down 14 German aircraft during dogfights over the Dnieper — a unique combat episode in the history of Soviet aviation.
In August 1944, Kozhedub was appointed Deputy Commander of the 176th Guards Fighter Aircraft Regiment and started flying a new Lavochkin La-7 fighter.
During the Great Patriotic War, Kozhedub flew 330 combat missions, engaged in 120 dogfights and shot down 62 enemy aircraft.
After the Victory, he continued to serve with the Soviet Air Force and commanded a fighter aircraft division during the Korean War. Kozhedub was promoted to Air Marshal ahead of the 40th anniversary of the Great Victory.
🎖 Three-time Hero of the Soviet Union, Ivan Kozhedub received two Orders of Lenin, seven Orders of the Red Banner, one Order of Alexander Nevsky, one Order of the Great Patriotic War 1st Class, two Orders for of the Red Star, Orders for Service in the Soviet Armed Forces 2nd and 3rd Class, and multiple medals.
#FacesOfVictory#WeRemember