🎙Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview for the documentary film “Nuremberg”(November 16, 2025, Moscow)
Read in full
❓Question: How and when did the idea of creating the International Military Tribunal arise? What role did the Soviet Side play in its organization and conduct? Why was the USSR’s position – from the very beginning insisting on the necessity of a tribunal – initially irrelevant to the UK and the US?
💬Sergey Lavrov: It was the Soviet Union that acted as the main driving force behind initiating the discussions, and later the establishment of the Tribunal.
The issue of ensuring the inevitability of punishment for Nazi criminals was first officially raised in a Soviet note in November 1941.
In 1942, the Soviet Government issued a special statement calling on all countries to cooperate in detaining, searching for, extraditing and bringing Nazi criminals to justice. <…>
This idea took its final shape in Yalta and was legally put on paper in London in October 1945, when the tribunal was established. Its Charter was signed, forming the legal basis for all subsequent work.
I would note that throughout these efforts the Soviet Union acted independently. It did not simply rely on the hope that an international body would someday be created and would “restore justice”.
In 1942, the Extraordinary State Commission for the Investigation of Atrocities Committed by the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices was established. It collected facts, materials and witness testimonies, and organized several trials during and after the Great Patriotic War, including in Krasnodar, Kharkov and other cities. The experience gained through these judicial initiatives was actively used at the Nuremberg Tribunal.
<…>
The initially restrained attitude of the Anglo-Saxons towards the idea of creating an international judicial body reflected concerns that the proceedings could “touch upon” the question of the origins of the war – why, after the Versailles Treaty, the countries that were supposed to restrain Germany under Hitler ended up cooperating with him. <…>
Our Western colleagues did not want to delve too deeply into history, lest it become widely known and openly discussed again. At the time, these facts were well understood.
It must be recognized that, eventually, the correct understanding of responsibility prevailed, and the arguments of the Soviet Union – the main initiator and driving force behind the creation of the Nuremberg Tribunal – were heard and accepted. Our role here is absolutely indisputable.
❓Question: In your view, what is the historical significance of the Nuremberg Trials in the post-war years? How did they influence the evolution of the world order?
💬Sergey Lavrov: The Judgement of the Nuremberg Tribunal contains principles that were formulated for the first time during the proceedings.
⚖️They formed the foundation of modern international law.
They abolished the “right of the strong” and affirmed the inadmissibility of the use of force and violations of humanitarian principles in any conflicts.
The principle of inevitability of punishment for war crimes, aggression and crimes against humanity – including genocide – was articulated internationally and universally during the Nuremberg process.
It was later organically reflected in numerous conventions adopted at the UN and in other formats.
It also found reflection in the principles of international law that underpin the work of the UN International Law Commission.
Of particular importance is the Nuremberg judgement’s affirmation that crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes are not subject to any statute of limitations.
❗️Nazi ideology, the Nazi Party and structures such as the SS (Schutzstaffel), SD (Sicherheitsdienst) and others were banned forever.
Regrettably, these elements of the judgement are now undergoing severe tests and are often violated.
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
🗓On December 29, President of Russia Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing April 19 as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People, perpetrated by the Nazis and their accomplices during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
The draft law to introduce this Day of Remembrance was developed by Russia's State Duma Committee on Defence in November 2025. The authors of the initiative proposed commemorating the victims on April 19, as on this date in 1943 the first legal act was issued that officially documented the Nazis’ policy of exterminating civilians in the occupied territories – Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 39 “On punishment measures for Nazi villains guilty of killing and torturing the Soviet civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers, for spies, traitors to the motherland from among Soviet citizens and for their accomplices”.
Decree No. 39 laid the legal foundations for bringing to justice Nazi criminals and their accomplices, including Italian, Romanian, Hungarian and Finnish military personnel. Materials collected during investigations conducted on the basis of Decree No. 39 formed a key part of the evidentiary base at the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Khabarovsk Trial, and other judicial proceedings against war criminals from the Axis powers.
💬 Speaking at a meeting of Pobeda (Victory) Organizing Committee on July 2, 2020, Vladimir Putin noted:
“The Nazis planned to colonize the Soviet land, to kill or turn into slaves and to take away the languages and culture of all who lived here – the Slavs and people of other ethnicities. These crimes of the Nazis and their minions and the genocide against the peoples of the Soviet Union do not have a statute of limitations. This assessment must remain firm in our legislation and in the international law system”.
🕯 Losses caused by the actions of the Nazis and their accomplices during the Great Patriotic War amounted to no fewer than 27 million Soviet citizens, while the total estimated demographic losses of the USSR approached 50 million people.
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
◼️ Today our country marks for the first time Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People, perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
It was established b the Executive Order of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin of December 29, 2025, and the basic details of commemorating the genocide victims were determined by Federal Law No. 74-FZ. The date of 19 April was not chosen by chance. On this day in 1943, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued its Decree No. 39
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
The genocide of the Soviet people means the actions committed in 1941-45 with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, ethnic, racial and national groups that inhabited the USSR.
The top echelon of Nazi Germany regarded the territory of the Soviet Union up to the Urals as its Lebensraum, which historically was intended to be settled with representatives of the Aryan race and, therefore to be cleansed from those, whom the Hitlerite elite labeled as “subhumans”: Slavs, Jews, Gypsies and Asians.
With these purposes in view, even before invading the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany planned a system of extermination practices to radically reduce the Soviet population as early as during the war.
The orchestrated famine strategy was an important part of the Nazi genocide programme (https://t.me/MID_Russia/77695) that was to lead to the death of 30 million Soviet citizens as early as in the winter of 1941-42.
▪️ Although it has not been implemented in full, it still caused enormous victims, including: among those who died were over three million Soviet prisoners of war, about a million of residents in the besieged Leningrad, a great number of civilian population starving in the occupied areas, women and children forcefully imprisoned in the Nazi transfer camps.
▪️ Jews and Gypsies were subject to total extermination.
▪️ Soviet female labourers (Ostarbeiter) were subject to forced abortions.
▪️ Soviet children having signs of Aryan origin were kidnapped in the occupied territories for subsequent Germanisation, which also constitutes a conventional form of genocide.
From the very beginning of the war, the Nazis developed the so-called General Plan ‘Ost’ with the aim of colonising the occupied territories. Under the plan, millions of Germans were to be resettled in the conquered lands. New, German towns and villages were to be built for them.
***
A horrifying estimate of 13.7 million people fell victim to the Hitler’s policy of destroying “subnormal” as he thought Soviet people, with another five million citizens to a willfully implemented famine strategy.
The facts of genocide in the occupied lands of former USSR have been confirmed judicially in all the constituent entities of Russia, where Nazis and their collaborators committed crimes against civilian population during the Great Patriotic War.
❗️Russia’s diplomatic service will seek to ensure that the crimes committed by the Nazis and their collaborators against the citizens of the Soviet Union are recognised by the international community as genocide against the Soviet people. The relevant qualification has been recorded in some documents adopted in the CIS and the CSTO.
💬Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the video address on Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People:
Preserving the memory of the millions of victims of the genocide of the Soviet people is our sacred duty. We will not allow those atrocities to be lost to oblivion, no matter how hard those who today seek once again to push Europe down the well-trodden path of racial superiority may try.
For further perusal:
👉On the Nazi's genocide of millions of Soviet citizens
👉Archival documents on heinous Nazi crimes in the concentration camps
👉 On the Khatyn' massacre
👉How the West created and supported Ukrainian Nazi collaborators complicit in the genocide
👉Section on the genocide of the Soviet people on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website (in Russian)
🎙Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview for the documentary film “Nuremberg”(November 16, 2025, Moscow)
Read in full
❓Question: How and when did the idea of creating the International Military Tribunal arise? What role did the Soviet Side play in its organization and conduct? Why was the USSR’s position – from the very beginning insisting on the necessity of a tribunal – initially irrelevant to the UK and the US?
💬Sergey Lavrov: It was the Soviet Union that acted as the main driving force behind initiating the discussions, and later the establishment of the Tribunal.
The issue of ensuring the inevitability of punishment for Nazi criminals was first officially raised in a Soviet note in November 1941.
In 1942, the Soviet Government issued a special statement calling on all countries to cooperate in detaining, searching for, extraditing and bringing Nazi criminals to justice. <…>
This idea took its final shape in Yalta and was legally put on paper in London in October 1945, when the tribunal was established. Its Charter was signed, forming the legal basis for all subsequent work.
I would note that throughout these efforts the Soviet Union acted independently. It did not simply rely on the hope that an international body would someday be created and would “restore justice”.
In 1942, the Extraordinary State Commission for the Investigation of Atrocities Committed by the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices was established. It collected facts, materials and witness testimonies, and organized several trials during and after the Great Patriotic War, including in Krasnodar, Kharkov and other cities. The experience gained through these judicial initiatives was actively used at the Nuremberg Tribunal.
<…>
The initially restrained attitude of the Anglo-Saxons towards the idea of creating an international judicial body reflected concerns that the proceedings could “touch upon” the question of the origins of the war – why, after the Versailles Treaty, the countries that were supposed to restrain Germany under Hitler ended up cooperating with him. <…>
Our Western colleagues did not want to delve too deeply into history, lest it become widely known and openly discussed again. At the time, these facts were well understood.
It must be recognized that, eventually, the correct understanding of responsibility prevailed, and the arguments of the Soviet Union – the main initiator and driving force behind the creation of the Nuremberg Tribunal – were heard and accepted. Our role here is absolutely indisputable.
❓Question: In your view, what is the historical significance of the Nuremberg Trials in the post-war years? How did they influence the evolution of the world order?
💬Sergey Lavrov: The Judgement of the Nuremberg Tribunal contains principles that were formulated for the first time during the proceedings.
⚖️They formed the foundation of modern international law.
They abolished the “right of the strong” and affirmed the inadmissibility of the use of force and violations of humanitarian principles in any conflicts.
The principle of inevitability of punishment for war crimes, aggression and crimes against humanity – including genocide – was articulated internationally and universally during the Nuremberg process.
It was later organically reflected in numerous conventions adopted at the UN and in other formats.
It also found reflection in the principles of international law that underpin the work of the UN International Law Commission.
Of particular importance is the Nuremberg judgement’s affirmation that crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes are not subject to any statute of limitations.
❗️Nazi ideology, the Nazi Party and structures such as the SS (Schutzstaffel), SD (Sicherheitsdienst) and others were banned forever.
Regrettably, these elements of the judgement are now undergoing severe tests and are often violated.
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
◼️ Today our country marks for the first time Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People, perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
It was established b the Executive Order of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin of December 29, 2025, and the basic details of commemorating the genocide victims were determined by Federal Law No. 74-FZ. The date of 19 April was not chosen by chance. On this day in 1943, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued its Decree No. 39
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
The genocide of the Soviet people means the actions committed in 1941-45 with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, ethnic, racial and national groups that inhabited the USSR.
The top echelon of Nazi Germany regarded the territory of the Soviet Union up to the Urals as its Lebensraum, which historically was intended to be settled with representatives of the Aryan race and, therefore to be cleansed from those, whom the Hitlerite elite labeled as “subhumans”: Slavs, Jews, Gypsies and Asians.
With these purposes in view, even before invading the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany planned a system of extermination practices to radically reduce the Soviet population as early as during the war.
The orchestrated famine strategy was an important part of the Nazi genocide programme (https://t.me/MID_Russia/77695) that was to lead to the death of 30 million Soviet citizens as early as in the winter of 1941-42.
▪️ Although it has not been implemented in full, it still caused enormous victims, including: among those who died were over three million Soviet prisoners of war, about a million of residents in the besieged Leningrad, a great number of civilian population starving in the occupied areas, women and children forcefully imprisoned in the Nazi transfer camps.
▪️ Jews and Gypsies were subject to total extermination.
▪️ Soviet female labourers (Ostarbeiter) were subject to forced abortions.
▪️ Soviet children having signs of Aryan origin were kidnapped in the occupied territories for subsequent Germanisation, which also constitutes a conventional form of genocide.
From the very beginning of the war, the Nazis developed the so-called General Plan ‘Ost’ with the aim of colonising the occupied territories. Under the plan, millions of Germans were to be resettled in the conquered lands. New, German towns and villages were to be built for them.
***
A horrifying estimate of 13.7 million people fell victim to the Hitler’s policy of destroying “subnormal” as he thought Soviet people, with another five million citizens to a willfully implemented famine strategy.
The facts of genocide in the occupied lands of former USSR have been confirmed judicially in all the constituent entities of Russia, where Nazis and their collaborators committed crimes against civilian population during the Great Patriotic War.
❗️Russia’s diplomatic service will seek to ensure that the crimes committed by the Nazis and their collaborators against the citizens of the Soviet Union are recognised by the international community as genocide against the Soviet people. The relevant qualification has been recorded in some documents adopted in the CIS and the CSTO.
💬Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the video address on Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People:
Preserving the memory of the millions of victims of the genocide of the Soviet people is our sacred duty. We will not allow those atrocities to be lost to oblivion, no matter how hard those who today seek once again to push Europe down the well-trodden path of racial superiority may try.
For further perusal:
👉On the Nazi's genocide of millions of Soviet citizens
👉Archival documents on heinous Nazi crimes in the concentration camps
👉 On the Khatyn' massacre
👉How the West created and supported Ukrainian Nazi collaborators complicit in the genocide
👉Section on the genocide of the Soviet people on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website (in Russian)
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
On March 24, 1999, NATO launched a military aggression against Yugoslavia.
This invasion marked a tragic milestone in the history of the Serb nation, dealt a destructive blow to international law and shattered the post-World War II foundations of European security.
For 78 days, Communities across Yugoslavia, including infrastructure serving exclusively civilian purposes, suffered from missile strikes and bombing attacks carried out by the United States and its allies.
▪️ According to Belgrade, this barbaric shelling killed over 2,500 people, including 89 children, and wounded 12,500 civilians.
Not a single NATO representative has been held to account. The victims of the aggression were designated as collateral damage – this is what it means to pay in blood for the geopolitical ambitions of the United States, the UK and their satellite states.
In fact, this marked the beginning of the West’s quest to substitute legitimate mechanisms governing international relations with what they call a rules-based order, even if it remains unclear what this order represents.
A sovereign state in the centre of Europe was targeted with 3,000 cruise missiles and 80,000 tonnes of aviation bombs.
NATO used depleted uranium shells, which polluted vast territories and led to an unprecedented increase in the occurrence of various types of cancer – people are still suffering from them. Over 200,000 non-Albanians from the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija were forced to leave their homes.
Fighters from the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army used the NATO aggression as a cover-up for perpetrating monstrous atrocities, including kidnapping Serbs for organ transplants.
The issue of holding NATO allies accountable for the way they undermined international relations and for the damage they caused in Yugoslavia has yet to be addressed.
NATO’s military operation against sovereign Yugoslavia 27 years ago became a tragedy, but its long-term and multifaceted reverberations can be felt to this day.
***
👉 Report and exhibition: War crimes committed by NATO countries in former Yugoslavia (by Foundation for the Study of Democracy)
The publication presents testimonies and offers a detailed review of the crimes committed by NATO, including:
▪️ Shelling residential neighbourhoods and killing civilians
▪️ Bombing civilian sites and energy infrastructure
▪️ Destroying manufacturing and energy facilities
▪️ Using cluster munitions and depleted uranium shells.
For more information, you can read and watch:
• FM Sergey Lavrov’s interviewfor a documentary marking 25 years of NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia
• A retrospective videocontaining archival footage about what happened on March 24, 1999, and the consequences of NATO’s aggression
◼️On August 9, 1945, just three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the United States launched a second nuclear attack on Japan dropping the Fat Man bomb on Nagasaki.
🕯 At 11:02 am, a nuclear bomb with a yield of 21 kilotonnes exploded 503 metres above the city, which resulted in over 70'000 deaths. In the following years, more than 100'000 people died from radiation-induced illnesses.
💬 Sakue Shimohira, survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, who was 10 years old at the time of the attack:
There was a flash of light, and the very second that it appeared as though the hole was illuminated from corner to corner, a violent gust of wind blew in; we were blown off our feet, dashed against the rocks, and I fainted. <...> The air-raid shelter was full of people with charred bodies; people with ripped flesh, covered in blood; people whose burns had swollen their bodies by two or three times.
After successfully deploying the uranium “Little Boy” in Hiroshima, the United States proceeded to deploy the plutonium implosion-type bomb.
☝️ When choosing the target for the second atomic strike, the United States sought to achieve maximum destruction and to demonstrate the consequences of using the new weapon.
The original target for Fat Man was the city of Kokura. However, dense cloud cover and smoke from recent bombings in nearby areas forced the Americans to redirect to the backup target — the city of Nagasaki, even though its topography made it less suitable for carrying out the test.
The attack on Nagasaki concluded the heinous experiment of using a new weapon of mass destruction against civilians and urban infrastructure.
Despite the horrific consequences of using nuclear weapons, US President Harry Truman cynically declared that the Japanese “have been repaid many fold” for the attack on Pearl Harbor and threatened with the development of even more powerful armaments.
💬 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:
The United States was the first and only country to use this type of weapon of mass destruction. We must join our efforts to ensure that the terror and pain of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will never be repeated.
(excerpt from Sergey Lavrov’s message to the participants of the memorial ceremony in Hiroshima on the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing).
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
🕯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
🕯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