Lukashenko recalls terrible price paid for liberation of Europe from fascism

On May 9, at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Victory Monument in Minsk, Head of State Alexander Lukashenko recalled the terrible price paid by the peoples of the Soviet Union and Belarus specifically for the liberation of Europe from fascism, BELTA reports.

"We celebrate the Great Victory Day, which gave our people life and freedom. We celebrate year after year, with processions and fireworks. With tears and sorrow. From the very moment Levitan's voice rang out over the Soviet Union. Then the announcer uttered the word everyone dreamed of hearing: 'Victory!' It changed the world. The Great Patriotic War ended. Our once-great Soviet Motherland, tormented and exhausted, liberated Europe. Everyone, including Western leaders, recognized the decisive, central role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of fascism. Everyone, including residents of Western countries, knew the mark Hitler's executioners left on our land," the head of state said.

Alexander Lukashenko recalled that more than 30 million people died in the Soviet Union during the war. Two thousand cities were destroyed, and more than 70 thousand villages and hamlets were wiped out.

"And millions of lives, ruined by the will of a madman and his army, gathered from all over Europe," the President noted. "The criminal case for the genocide of the Belarusian people adds new figures to our losses. Plus 47 punitive operations we were unaware of. Plus 166 sites of extermination and burial. The map of burned villages now lists 13,000 addresses, and 300 settlements shared the tragic fate of Khatyn."

Belarus lost every third of its inhabitants in that war. "This is an irreparable loss for us and a terrible price to pay for extinguishing the ovens of Auschwitz and Treblinka. So that never again would trains carrying slave labor and the riches of our native land travel from east to west. Back then, in 1945, every Soviet soldier who passed through liberated Belarus knew that he would go further, all the way to Berlin. Along the road of the sacred struggle between good and evil," the Belarusian leader emphasized.