09 May 2025
Dear friends!
I congratulate you on the eightieth anniversary of the Great Victory — one of the brightest, greatest, and most touching dates in the history of our people.
Today is not just a day of the memory of the victims of the bloodiest war in the history of mankind. It is not only a tribute to the veterans, very few of whom are still alive: those who were called up at the very end of the war, in 1945, are 98 years old today! This day is a test of the right to be called Man.
Because in an era of total dehumanisation, it is the attitude towards 9 May that is the best indicator of the extent to which we preserve conscience, memory, the feeling of gratitude, and the ability to keep our own position when an aggressive crowd is in a hurry to pull down monuments and rewrite history. To remain oneself, to be proud of one's heroic ancestors, to preserve memory of the horrors and feats of war, and to discern truth from lies is what is especially valuable in our time and what distinguishes a real Man.
Today, politicians try to push into oblivion a part of our history, a part of our family tales. We are made to betray our grandfathers. The concept 'Great Patriotic War' is being erased from our conscience and replaced with the de-personified and general 'World War Two'. And next is a straightforward rewriting of history. There are attempts to convince us that the USSR was as guilty of sparking the war as Germany. We are told that it makes no difference which of the totalitarian regimes won the war. There are attempts to tell us that the real history of the war is the activity of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, not of the Red Army and Soviet partisans. We are made to be ashamed of the feats of our ancestors. And many thoughtlessly follow the new ideological vogue.
The Ninth of May is a day of purification from lies, a day of gaining true historical memory. The war affected every family. However, not everyone tries to remember it nowadays, without thinking that but for the Great Victory eighty years ago, there would not be most of us today. This genetic and mental connection is not obvious for many today — even more so because official historians are shamefully silent about both the atrocities of the Nazis and their plans concerning the occupied territories and the Generalplan Ost. Hence are attempts to vindicate Fascism. Current ideologists are faced with the main task: to erase the memory about peoples of the former USSR accomplishing a great feat by common efforts. And therefore, they try to denigrate and rewrite our common history while showing at the same time that Hitler was not that terrible...
A new tendency has recently appeared: high-ranking politicians promote an assertion that the main victor in the war was the United States of America. Without her, without her assistance, the Soviet Union would not have won the war. The servile attempt to pander to Washington prompts politicians to outright lies and the twisting of figures and facts. 'The USA would have won the war anyway, and then they would have liberated the European territory of the USSR', write proponents of the 'new history'.
It is an outrage against the memory of our heroes, of millions of victims of the war. It is an attempt to subjugate the historical truth to a political request.
But I believe that the ideological foam will vanish, and the real memory of the war, pride for the ancestors, and the true history of the Great Patriotic War will return to the people again. I believe that the destroyed monuments to heroes will be restored. I believe that graves of fallen soldiers will be esteemed again. And streets will again bear the names of glorious military leaders, who saved the world from Nazism. For anyway, there are more of those who have not lost their human essence. And the truth is on our side.
Today, I would like to congratulate first of all the veterans of the Great Patriotic War. May God give them long, long years of life. For they are living history, they are eyewitnesses and participants. There are few of them, but as long as they are alive, they stand guard over the truth about the war.
I sincerely congratulate all of those who today find in themselves the strength and courage to remain People, who have not lost their memory and have not rejected their past. The Victory Day is called 'civil Pascha' in the people, which underlines that the world was risen after the horror of war and revived to a new life. And on this bright holiday, I wish everyone to remain worthy of the feats of our ancestors.
And I particularly wish everybody the coming of long-awaited peace. Peoples who defeated Hitler by their common efforts in 1945 ought not to be enemies. We ought to be united by our common history, common feats, common memory; and therefore, we will definitely find the strength in ourselves to leave grudges and hard times behind. It is necessary to believe and know: peace is inevitable.
Happy Holiday of Great Victory!
Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
All related news I congratulate you on the eightieth anniversary of the Great Victory — one of the brightest, greatest, and most touching dates in the history of our people.
Today is not just a day of the memory of the victims of the bloodiest war in the history of mankind. It is not only a tribute to the veterans, very few of whom are still alive: those who were called up at the very end of the war, in 1945, are 98 years old today! This day is a test of the right to be called Man.
Because in an era of total dehumanisation, it is the attitude towards 9 May that is the best indicator of the extent to which we preserve conscience, memory, the feeling of gratitude, and the ability to keep our own position when an aggressive crowd is in a hurry to pull down monuments and rewrite history. To remain oneself, to be proud of one's heroic ancestors, to preserve memory of the horrors and feats of war, and to discern truth from lies is what is especially valuable in our time and what distinguishes a real Man.
Today, politicians try to push into oblivion a part of our history, a part of our family tales. We are made to betray our grandfathers. The concept 'Great Patriotic War' is being erased from our conscience and replaced with the de-personified and general 'World War Two'. And next is a straightforward rewriting of history. There are attempts to convince us that the USSR was as guilty of sparking the war as Germany. We are told that it makes no difference which of the totalitarian regimes won the war. There are attempts to tell us that the real history of the war is the activity of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, not of the Red Army and Soviet partisans. We are made to be ashamed of the feats of our ancestors. And many thoughtlessly follow the new ideological vogue.
The Ninth of May is a day of purification from lies, a day of gaining true historical memory. The war affected every family. However, not everyone tries to remember it nowadays, without thinking that but for the Great Victory eighty years ago, there would not be most of us today. This genetic and mental connection is not obvious for many today — even more so because official historians are shamefully silent about both the atrocities of the Nazis and their plans concerning the occupied territories and the Generalplan Ost. Hence are attempts to vindicate Fascism. Current ideologists are faced with the main task: to erase the memory about peoples of the former USSR accomplishing a great feat by common efforts. And therefore, they try to denigrate and rewrite our common history while showing at the same time that Hitler was not that terrible...
A new tendency has recently appeared: high-ranking politicians promote an assertion that the main victor in the war was the United States of America. Without her, without her assistance, the Soviet Union would not have won the war. The servile attempt to pander to Washington prompts politicians to outright lies and the twisting of figures and facts. 'The USA would have won the war anyway, and then they would have liberated the European territory of the USSR', write proponents of the 'new history'.
It is an outrage against the memory of our heroes, of millions of victims of the war. It is an attempt to subjugate the historical truth to a political request.
But I believe that the ideological foam will vanish, and the real memory of the war, pride for the ancestors, and the true history of the Great Patriotic War will return to the people again. I believe that the destroyed monuments to heroes will be restored. I believe that graves of fallen soldiers will be esteemed again. And streets will again bear the names of glorious military leaders, who saved the world from Nazism. For anyway, there are more of those who have not lost their human essence. And the truth is on our side.
Today, I would like to congratulate first of all the veterans of the Great Patriotic War. May God give them long, long years of life. For they are living history, they are eyewitnesses and participants. There are few of them, but as long as they are alive, they stand guard over the truth about the war.
I sincerely congratulate all of those who today find in themselves the strength and courage to remain People, who have not lost their memory and have not rejected their past. The Victory Day is called 'civil Pascha' in the people, which underlines that the world was risen after the horror of war and revived to a new life. And on this bright holiday, I wish everyone to remain worthy of the feats of our ancestors.
And I particularly wish everybody the coming of long-awaited peace. Peoples who defeated Hitler by their common efforts in 1945 ought not to be enemies. We ought to be united by our common history, common feats, common memory; and therefore, we will definitely find the strength in ourselves to leave grudges and hard times behind. It is necessary to believe and know: peace is inevitable.
Happy Holiday of Great Victory!
Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
