Post #2611

✍️Article by Ambassador of Russia to South Africa Roman Ambarov “Soviet Union & South Africa: Allies in World War II” (8 May 2025) 🔗READ IN FULL ➡️ Key points: ▪️ May 9, 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945, the most important and dramatic part of World War II. ▪️ We are celebrating the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory over Hitler’s Germany and the liberation of Europe from Nazism. Nearly 90% of all Nazi combat loses occurred on the Eastern Front, and it was the Red Army that single-handedly captured Berlin in April–May 1945. ▪️ During the war, South Africa was our ally and an important member of the Anti-Hitler Coalition. Around 3,000 South African seamen served in the Royal navy, many of them – on board Allied vessels carrying valuable supplies to our northern ports of Russia. ▪️ South African public organizations, such as the Friends of the Soviet Union and the Medical Aid for Russia, raised around GBP 1 million in donations between 1942 and 1945. ▪️ Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seventh “Leningrad” Symphony, a work that became a musical manifesto of resistance to Nazism, was premiered on 9 July 1944 in Johannesburg and, two month later, in Cape Town. The proceeds from the ticket sales were donated to the Soviet Union’s war effort. ▪️ The ultimate defeat of Nazism in 1945 laid the foundations of the world as we know it. Africa’s decolonisation and the collapse of apartheid would not be possible without that victory. #Victory80#Ambarov