🌟#OnThisDay8️⃣0️⃣ years ago, on January 27, 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oswiecim, was located in Nazi-occupied Poland) — the most terrifying German extermination camp in #WWII — was liberated by the Red Army’s 1st Ukrainian Front during the Vistula–Oder offensive operation.
#Auschwitz was created by the Nazis in 1940 in a building that used to serve as military barracks near a small town called Oswiecim, whose history dates back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Having occupied Poland in 1939, the Nazis changed the town's name of Oswiecim to German Auschwitz. Later, in 1941-1943, two more imprisonment facilities were established in the vicinity of Oswiecim. They were:
▪️Auschwitz II — best known to the wider public as #AuschwitzBirkenau, was three kilometres away from the main facility — Oswiecim and located near Brzezinka, a Polish village (Birkenau in German). Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest "death factory". Equipped with crematoriums and gas chambers, it was created by the Nazis with only one aim — exterminate people.
▪️Auschwitz III (also known as Monowitz). Its prisoners were used by the Nazis for the Third Reich war industries.
Following the so-called Wannsee Conference in 1942, the Nazis approved what was called the “final solution to the Jewish question”. Since then, Auschwitz-Birkenau was turned into the main "death factory" for the annihilation of Jews in Europe.
❗️ Prisoners of Oswiecim were held by the Nazis in inhuman, barbaric conditions. They had to do hard, exhausting work until total exhaustion, to endure poor sanitation in the camp's facilities, malnutrition and constant tortures by the guards and SS-troops. It was in Oswiecim that the Germans first tested the "Zyklon-B" poisonous agent on human beings. Prisoners of Auschwitz were also subjected to cruel medical experiments, led by a Nazi criminal, infamous retired military doctor Josef Mengele.
In 1944, when the Red Army started the liberation of Europe, the Nazis, in an effort to cover the tracks of their crimes in Auschwitz, rushed to burn documents and destroy the camp's gas chambers, crematoriums, and deported as many prisoners as they could westward to other concentration camps deep in the Third Reich — over 58,000 prisoners were evacuated by the Nazis before Oswiecim and liberated by the Soviet forces in January, 1945.
***
In January 1945, the units of the 1st Ukrainian Front launched the Vistula-Oder offensive and, successfully expelling the Nazis from Poland, finally reached Auschwitz.
⚔️ In the late hours of January 27, following three days of fighting the retreating enemy, the Red Army took over Oswiecim and opened the gatesofAuschwitz. The camp’s 7,000 prisoners were freed. Most of them were sick or suffering from extreme exhaustion and tortures.
Rescued prisoners burst into tears of joy when they greeted their liberators. Some facilities of the camp were instantly made a hospital. According to various historic estimates, in 1940-1945, from 1.5 to 4 million people perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Over the past years, we are witnessing a campaign in several European countries, including Poland, to rewrite and falsify the history of WWII and, in particular, to erase the memory of the feat performed by the Soviet soldiers-liberators who saved the Auschwitz prisoners.
🎙 From a briefing by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on topical foreign policy issues (January 23, 2025):
💬 "This year, like all those years before, Russian representatives will not be invited to the commemoration ceremonies at Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27. That is, there will be no one there to mention the Soviet liberator soldiers and express gratitude to them. In this regard, there is something that needs to be said to the organisers and all the Europeans who will be there:
Your lives, your work and leisure, the very existence of your nations, your children have been paid for by Soviet soldiers, their lives, their blood. It was them who crushed the Third Reich machine. You are forever in their debt."
🕯#WeRemember
🗓 86 years ago — on August 23, 1939 — the Soviet Union and Germany signed the Non-Aggression Treaty in Moscow.
This document was an important achievement of the Soviet diplomacy ahead of #WWII: the USSR was able to buy time to better prepare to repel Hitler’s impending attack, which had been seen as inevitable due to the failed policy of “appeasement” by Western European states and their refusal to forge a collective security agreement with our nation against Nazism.
Signing the non-aggression treaty with Germany was a difficult but necessary decision by the Soviet leadership, driven by national security considerations and the urgent need to deter Nazi aggression in the east.
***
In the 1930s, twenty years after the end of World War I, the threat of a new large-scale armed conflict in Europe began to grow. A key factor for this was the crisis of the Versailles system of international relations, designed by Britain and France, which paved the way for rising revanchist sentiments in the states it had humiliated — Germany and Italy.
With the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany, the threat of a new war in Europe became real. Hitler’s misanthropic ideology was rooted in the notorious doctrine of “racial superiority.” The Nazis used this doctrine to justify Germany’s pursuit of world domination. In this way, an absolute evil emerged at the heart of Europe, endangering the peace and freedom of entire nations.
By the mid-1930s, it became evident that another German aggression in Europe was inevitable — it was merely a matter of time. In an effort to counter the rising threat of German revanchism, the Soviet Union suggested the creation of a collective security system in Europe, founded on anti-fascist principles, to unite efforts and deliver a joint response to the common threat.
Yet in Paris and London, where anti-Soviet sentiments ran deep, the idea of cooperation with Moscow was rejected as such. Instead, Western powers sought to strike a deal with Germany, aiming to pacify the Germans through unilateral concessions. The political establishments of the West failed to grasp the existential threat posed by Nazi ideology, cynically believing that Hitler’s aggression could be redirected eastward.
The “appeasement” tactics whetted the aggressor’s appetite. In March 1938, with the connivance of Paris and London, Hitler carried out the Anschluss of Austria. In September, following the criminal “Munich conspiracy” and with the approval of the UK and France, he cynically dismembered the sovereign state of Czechoslovakia. Warsaw, which was interested in getting part of Czechoslovakia’s territory for itself, prohibited flights of Soviet aircraft to render aid to Czechoslovak army. Already a de facto accomplice of Hitler, Poland had supported every single foreign policy move of the Reich.
❗️A new war in Europe became inevitable.
Thus, “appeasement” policy ended in total failure. Attempting to sate the Nazis’ insatiable ambitions, the Western powers failed to restrain the aggressor or thwart its criminal plans.
The Soviet Union remained the only European power still striving to organise collective resistance against Nazi Germany. In the spring and summer of 1939, the USSR initiated consultations with France and Britain in Moscow. However, the negotiation process failed to yield practical results — the Western powers that until the last moment hoped for a compromise with Hitler, engaged in secret talks with Germany behind the Soviet Union’s back.
👉The Soviet diplomacy ran out of chances to build a collective security system in Europe. Moscow also had to take into account the Japanese factor — the hostilities on the Khalkhin-Gol that began in May 1939. The Soviet leadership could not afford a war on two fronts.
By August 1939, several European nations had concluded non-aggression pacts with Hitler. The Soviet Union was the last major power to follow the suit. As a result, our country gained valuable time to prepare for a clash with the world’s most powerful army at that time.
📖Learn more in our in-depthhistorical feature.
🎙Address by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to participants in the 13th International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues(May 28, 2025)
💬 Vladimir Putin: I am pleased to welcome you to Moscow for the 13th International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues.
Over the past nearly fifteen years, your Forum has convincingly affirmed its significant status and authority. I know that in these days, participants of the Meeting — representatives of delegations from many states — can expect a substantial programme, with the main discussion dedicated to the prospects of establishing a new global security architecture.
☝️ As for Russia, our approaches remain principled and unchanged. I have said it before and will reiterate: we are convinced that the new security architecture must be equal and indivisible — that is, all states must receive firm guarantees of their own security, but not at the expense of the security and interests of other countries.
It is vital to make our continent a space of peace and stability, an example of sustainable economic, social, and cultural development. We believe that the foundation for creating such a universal security system could be the existing and well-established multilateral cooperation formats, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and others.
Your current meeting is widely attended by states of the Global South and East. It is they, in essence, who form the global majority, seek to influence regional and international processes more actively, and uphold the principle of sovereign equality and the right to their own development model.
Undoubtedly, in building joint efforts, it is necessary to rely on positive historical experience, on the lessons of the past. This year marks the 80th Anniversary of the end of #WWII, which fundamentally influenced the development of the international community.
The experience of uniting states in the fight against evil, against Nazism and militarism, the understanding of the colossal price humanity paid for peace and freedom, for the right of peoples to choose their own path of development, laid the foundations of the post-war world order and led to the creation of the UN — a universal, legitimate organisation based on the principles of international law, which has helped overcome many geopolitical challenges.
Today, it is especially important to preserve the truth about the events of those years, to counter attempts to rewrite history, to cast doubt on the decisive contribution of the peoples of the Soviet Union to the Victory over Hitler’s Germany, and to glorify Nazi criminals and their accomplices.
Just recently, on May 9, we solemnly marked the Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. The celebrations in Moscow became yet another symbol of unity around the ideals of the Great Victory, demonstrating once again the commitment of our friends and partners to shaping a safer world, to constructive cooperation, and to jointly addressing global challenges.
I am convinced that this latest meeting of high representatives overseeing security issues will contribute to the development of new important approaches to strengthening international peace and stability and will help advance dialogue for the benefit of all countries and peoples.
I wish you success.
🏅 On May 9, 1945, at 12:43 am, the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender of Nazi Germany was signed, putting an end to the Great Patriotic War and #WWII in Europe.
Following a successful assault on Berlin by the Red Army, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. The title of Reich President and command of the armed forces of the Third Reich passed to Admiral Karl Dönitz.
Desperate to surrender to the British-American troops, on May 5, German delegation arrived in the French city of Reims, where the headquarters of the Western Allies command was located.
In the Article 4 of the Reims Instrument of Surrender of Nazi Germany stated that this document did not rule out the signing of another, definitive act at the request of one of the coalition members.
Thus, the document was recognised by the Soviet Union only as a preliminary instrument, and a new signing ceremony was proposed to be held in the capital of Nazi Germany, liberated by the Red Army - Berlin.
🌟 On may 9, at 12:43 am in district of Karlshorst the signing ceremony of the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender of Nazi Germany took place.
On May 9, 1945, at 2:10 am Moscow time, announcer Yury Levitan read out the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender of Nazi Germany and the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declaring May 9 Victory Day. From that moment on, the Soviet Union and later Russia, as well as the most former Soviet republics have celebrated Victory Day on May 9.
💬 Sergey Lavrov:This year’s Victory Day has a special significance because we are celebrating this great holiday in a situation where Nazism is rearing its head again. The descendants of Napoleon and Hitler have joined the Anglo-Saxons, again seeking to inflict a “strategic defeat” on our country, destroy it and subordinate it to their narrow selfish hegemonic interests. Just like our fathers and grandfathers volunteered to the front, today, once again, we see an extraordinary upsurge in society, as Russians are rallying to another sacred battle.
📖Read in full
🇻🇳 On September 2, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam celebrates Independence Day.
Since mid-19th century, Vietnam was under French colonial rule and was later occupied by militaristic Japan during World War II. The victory of the August Revolution in 1945 ended foreign domination and established Vietnam as an independent state.
#OnThisDay 79 years ago, President Ho Chi Minh declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Ba Dinh Square in the capital.
The Soviet Union was among the first countries to recognize the new Vietnamese state, establishing diplomatic relations on January 30, 1950. This pivotal recognition laid the groundwork for many years of friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation between our nations.
The people of Vietnam had to fight for their freedom for many years, initially during the Resistance War from 1946 to 1954, and later in the struggle against foreign aggression led by the USA, which was marked by egregious war crimes against civilians. Throughout these challenging times, the Soviet Union stood by the Vietnamese people, offering them unwavering support.
✊ In 1975, this valiant struggle culminated in the reunification of the country and the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Today, Vietnam is a rapidly developing state and an active participant in both regional and international organizations.
🤝 Modern-day Russia-Vietnam relations are built on a foundation of enduring friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation, characterized by a comprehensive strategic partnership. We have a robust political dialogue, and our trade, economic, technological, and cultural and humanitarian ties are steadily growing. Political contacts and negotiations at high and the highest levels occur regularly.
🎉 We extend our heartfelt congratulations to our Vietnamese colleagues and friends on their national holiday! We wish them peace, prosperity, and success.
#RussiaVietnam
🕯 April 11th marks the International Day of Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps. It was established by UNESCO in 1952 to commemorate the international uprising of the prisoners of Buchenwald death camp on April 11, 1945 — one of the Third Reich’s largest concentration camps.
▪️ The Nazis created the entire system, designed to... efficiently dispose of and exterminatepeople of 'undesirable' ethnicities, social views and those who opposed them — communists, Jews, Slavs, Roma, PoWs, members of Resistance movements. This Nazi lethal & inhumane machine comprised massive network of concentration and death camps established in Germany & occupied territories. Millions of prisoners from the Soviet Union and European countries were kept there in horrible, inhuman conditions. There were over 20 million prisoners from 30 countries held captives in those camps, including about 5 million Soviet citizens. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg declared the creation of such camps not only as a war crime but also as a crime against humanity.
The Nazi death camp system was destroyed after the Great Victory — when Nazism and the Third Reich had been crushed.
The Majdanek concentration camp (Poland) was the first extermination facility whose prisoners were saved by the Red Army from annihilation by Nazi executioners in July 1944. Prisoners of Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Oswiecim (#AuschwitzBirkenau), Stutthof, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, and other concentration camps were liberated later, with WWII coming to its end.
🎙 An excerpt from a briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (April 9, 2025):
💬“The International Day of Liberation of Nazi concentration camps is a symbol of solidarity and resistance against all forms of violence, discrimination and genocide, urging the world to remember history and prevent a repetition of those tragic events.
In this context, we are outraged by the historical cynicism of the German authorities, who have been trying to downplay the importance of Victory as an act of the liberation of Europe from Nazism and refuse to recognise the crimes committed by Nazis and their accomplices in the Soviet Union as genocide against Soviet peoples.”
***
#ArchivesTalk: Numerous archive materials (from Russia's Ministry of Defence and Federal Security Service), containing evidence that elucidatebarbaric crimes committed by Nazis and their henchmen — collaborators and punishers from nationalist groups — against concentration camp prisoners and civilians in the occupied territories, have been declassified.
➡️ A special multimedia section, "The Beast Face of Nazism", contains evidence of mass annihilation of people (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, French, and Italians) in Nazi-occupied territories of the Soviet Union and European countries.
➡️Digital copies of declassified documents from the Archives of the Federal Security Service of Russia about atrocities and murders committed by the Nazis and their accomplices in Treblinka death camp: the SS units applied atrocious methods annihilating up to five million Jews, Poles, and Roma.
➡️Materials from Russia's Ministry of Defence Central Archives about crimes committed by Nazis and their accomplices in the Jewish ghetto in Malorita, Brest Region, USSR, and Finnish concentration camp in Karelian-Finnish SSR.
➡️Archives of the Federal Security Service of Russia on Nazi war crimes in the Kursk Region during the Great Patriotic War shed light on similarity between the atrocities by Nazis and the crimes committed by Ukrainian armed formations.
➡️Documents published by Russia's Ministry of Defence within the project "Archives Remember Everything...", which provide evidence of crimes and atrocities committed by Ukrainian nationalists and banderites who participated in mass extermination of Poles and Jews.
#NoStatuteofLimitations
🗓Exactly 80 years ago, on 4 April 1945, the Red Army liberated Bratislava from the forces of the Nazi Germany.
The goal of the Bratislava–Brno Offensive Operation (25 March – 5 May 1945), carried out by the troops led by Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, was to liberate Slovakia and to reach the outskirts of Prague. The Soviet cavalry attacks under the command of General Issa Pliev became a striking episode of the battles for Bratislava.
The units of Cossacks crushed the enemy, not permitting the Nazis to regroup for defence. At the same time, ships of the Danube Flotilla landed a large assault force in the enemy’s rear, clearing the way towards Bratislava. Within just 24 hours of street battles, the capital of Slovakia was liberated from the fascists.
The troops were commended for the successful fighting, while the military divisions and units that had performed best in the battles to recapture the city were named after the city of Bratislava.
In Slovakia, there are about 160 burial sites of Soviet soldiers who perished during the liberation of the territory of the present Slovak Republic from fascism. More than 60,000 Soviet soldiers rest in military cemeteries, mass graves and individual tombs. In their honour, some 100 monuments, memorial plaques and other commemorative signs have been erected.
❗️We shall never forget the great heroic act of the Red Army!
#Victory80#WeRemember
🗓 81 years ago, the events of critical importance for Europe took place. On 26 March 1944, as part of the Uman–Botoșani offensive, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front led by Marshal Ivan Konev reached the Prut River that constituted the state border between the USSR and Romania.
The Allies of the Anti-Hitler Coalition persistently asked to advance further and not to stop fighting against Nazi Germany and its henchmen. In the night of March 27, the Red Army crossed the Soviet-Romanian border.
Those developments effectively paved the way for the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe from the German invaders. More than one million Red Army soldiers gave their lives in the struggle to save the European nations enslaved by the Nazis.
Regretfully, the memory of World War II on a regular basis falls under the manipulation of Western countries that seek to rewrite history to serve their geopolitical interests. Many European politicians shamelessly generate false facts and assessments that completely distort not only the role of the Soviet Union but also, more broadly, the causes and nature of World War II.
❗️It is our common duty to preserve historical truth and honour the memory of the heroes who sacrificed themselves for the sake of peace and freedom for all.
#Victory80#WeRemember
🗓 Today is the Day of Military Glory of Russia - the Day of the defeat of the Nazi troops by the Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad. On 2 February 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad one of the largest and fiercest battles in the world history that radically changed the course of the Great Patriotic War, was concluded.
The Stalingrad Victory was the result of the unbending resilience, courage and self-sacrificing heroism of the Soviet troops. It was this battle that made a decisive contribution to reaching a major turning point in the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army seized the strategic initiative and retained it until the Victory Day. The defeat of the Nazi bloc in the battle of Stalingrad also helped to energize the Resistance Movement in the European countries.
🕯The memory of this great battle on the banks of the Volga River is carefully preserved in the Museum-Reserve “The Battle of Stalingrad” that includes the internationally renowned Memorial Complex on Mamayev Kurgan, the Panorama Museum “The Battle of Stalingrad”, as well as the Museum “Memory” located in the historical place where the Soviet troops captured the Headquarters of the 6th German Army headed by Feld Marshal Friedrich Paulus.
❗Russia honours the memory of its heroes and is proud of the heroic act of the Soviet citizens who gave their lives in order to liberate Europe from fascism.
#Victory80#WeRemember
🗓 Exactly 80 years ago, on 17 January 1945, Warsaw was liberated from fascist invaders by the forces of the 1st Belorussian Front of the Red Army and the 1st Polish Army. The city was under German occupation since 28 September 1939.
The Warsaw-Poznan operation was an important part of one of the largest offensives of the Great Patriotic War – the Vistula-Oder Operation (12 January – 3 February 1945).
✏ In 2017, the Russian Ministry of Defence unveiled a unique archive with declassified documents on the liberation of Poland by the Soviet Armed Forces. Those documents provide evidence of how Poles treated Soviet soldiers: church priests called on worshippers to support the Red Army, people brought flowers to the soldiers, Polish and Soviet flags were displayed outside houses.
❗It is our common duty to remember history and honour the heroic deeds of those who gave us the right to life. It is symbolic that the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Warsaw coincides with the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Regardless of the attempts made by some European politicians to distort the historical truth and downplay the role of the USSR in liberating Europe from Nazism, the chronicle of the war years cannot be rewritten. It will forever remain a living reminder for future generations.
#Victory80#WeRemember