◼️ 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".
◼️ 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".
◼️ 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".
#Victory80
🌟 On September 14, 1944, the Red Army launched the Baltic strategic offensive operation. Its primary goal was to liberate the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics from the Nazi scourge by defeating the enemies' Army group 'North' and expelling the German troops.
The goal was achieved, although the task was arduous! Following the operation, the Nazi troops were encircled in the so-called Courland Pocket (where the enemy resisted until the vary May of 1945), and thereafter ultimately eliminated by the Red Army.
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
Having invaded the Baltic region in the summer of 1941, instead of providing the “independence” promised to the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, the Nazis established the occupation regime in the Soviet Baltics, which was characterized by terror and genocide. The Nazis' plan was to make the region a part of the German Reichskommissariat Ostland.
▪️ When the Nazis occupied Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, the local radical nationalists and pro-fascist organisations raised their heads there and swore allegiance to Hitler. Doing the dirty job for their Nazi masters, the Baltic collaborators carried out atrocities with extreme cruelty, executing civilians, burning villages, and organising massacres. With their involvement, more than 100'000 people were annihilated in concentration camps, such as Salaspils and Klooga.
👉Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian collaborators also took part in the mass executions in the neighbouring regions of the Soviet Union (including in Belarus). They were also involved in the Nazis' campaign to exterminate Jews. The blood of hundreds of thousands of civilians and POWs is on the hands of those criminals.
Today, unfortunately, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania glorify those Nazi criminals on the governmental level, with monuments unveiled in the honour of the Nazi Baltic henchmen and gatherings held in the Baltics to commemorate Waffen-SS legionnaires, other Nazi collaborators, and their adherents.
***
During #WWII, the Baltic region was of crucial strategic importance to the Reich on the Eastern front. The control over the region allowed the Nazis to rule over the Gulf of Finland from the south and the eastern Baltic, and to ensure uninterrupted deliveries of Swedish and Norwegian raw materials critical for the Nazi war machine, such as iron ore, coal, and others.
The Nazis extracted agricultural resources from Latvia and Lithuania, while Estonia alone provided Nazi Germany with nearly half a million tonnes of oil products annually.
❗️ Furthermore, the Baltic region shielded the way to East Prussia — the stronghold of German militarism. So, the Nazis were seeking to retain the Baltic bridgehead at any cost.
The Nazis installed in the Baltics powerful fortifications, designed for long-term defence, including the so-called Tannenberg Line — a complex of heavy fortified lines and trenches stretching for more than 50 km long and 25-30 km deep, located about 20-25 km west of Narva — on the isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Peipus (Chudskoye).
⚔️ On September 14, 1944, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts of the Red Army launched the strategic offensive towards Riga. Within just three days, the Soviet forces advanced up to 50 km. On September 22, Tallinn was liberated, followed by Riga on October 13.
The final stage of the operation was the liberation of the Moonsund archipelago in northwestern Estonia: by November 24, the Nazi troops were expelled from the islands of Ösel (today’s Saaremaa) and Dago (Hiiumaa).
As a result of the Baltic strategic offensive operation, the Red Army inflicted a crushing defeat to the enemy. The Nazi army group 'North' was mostly destroyed, with its remnants trapped on the Courland Peninsula, unable to engage further in Germany’s eastern defences in 1945.
🎖 112 Red Army soldiers were awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union. More than 332,000 received orders and medals.
#WeRemember
🎙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
#NoStatuteOfLimitations
🕯May 2 marks 11 years since the tragedy in Odessa.
On that day, the Euromaidan supporters, ultra radicals and outright Neo-Nazis committed atrocities against those who openly opposed the anti-constitutional government coup in Kiev perpetrated by nationalists, at the behest and with the support from their the western sponsors.
This atrocity must not be forgotten or swept under the rug: we shan't let the world forget what happened on 2 May 2014 in Odessa.
👉A detailed reconstruction & retrospective of the events of that day and the ensuing tragedy.
According to official statistics alone, at least 48 people died during these tragic events, including 42 who were killed orburned alive at the Trade Unions House, as well as another six who perished during the clashes on the streets of Odessa.
In fact, the Kiev regime and its pet cronies has repeated — to the letter — what the Bandera torturers did 80 years ago in Khatyn.
❗️ Although many perpetrators have been identified, they have not received the punishment they deserve.
The West remains silent regarding these bloody crimes of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis, the Kiev regime, which to this day continues to useterrorist methods.
Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy in Odessa of May 2, 2024.
Maria Zakharova: Today, as we pay tribute to the victims of the bloody reprisals in Odessa, we have no doubt that sooner or later those who perpetrated and inspired this barbaric crime, which has no statute of limitations, will have to face the punishment they deserve.
🗓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
🗓 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.
◼️ 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