Belarus and Russia at OSCE Issue Statement Commemorating 84th Anniversary of Outbreak of WWII

The delegations of Belarus and Russia at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) issued a joint statement in observance of the 84th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The statement was presented by Belarus’s Permanent Representative, Andrei Dapkyunas, during the organization’s Permanent Council session in Vienna.

"Displacement and extermination of the peaceful population by the Nazis and their accomplices, as documented in the verdict of the Nuremberg Trials, must be recognized as genocide against the peoples of the Soviet Union," the declaration emphasizes.

Belarusian and Russian diplomats expressed their opposition to the ongoing destruction of war memorials and brotherly graves by some participating states of the OSCE. They also called for a unified international effort to preserve historical memory and to combat racism, xenophobia, and neo-Nazism.