Zakharova: Ukrainian Veterans Advised to Veil Their Honors

Veterans of the Great Patriotic War living in Ukraine have been advised to conceal their hard-won decorations. The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, revealed this at a briefing, according to BELTA.

"Veterans of the Great Patriotic War residing in Ukraine are being told to hide their decorations – the very symbols of victory, of valor in battle, of the deeds of the Great Patriotic War – on the inside lapel of their jackets, so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the local populace. While they don't utter the word 'Russophobes,' the implication is clear. What is this? What can this be called? This is deliberate scorn, this is a form of torment, this is the abasement of individuals," Maria Zakharova asserted.

She claimed that the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory had drafted the pertinent guidance. "It dictates how one should (in their phrasing) properly wear Soviet orders and medals, the public exhibition of which is now, in essence, prohibited. Having rewritten history, Kiev now demands that genuine heroes not merely fade into obscurity, but that they somehow extinguish themselves, that they not make their presence known, that they dare not display their orders and medals," the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry observed.

"Plainly, the remembrance of those who delivered the world from Nazism stirs feelings of apprehension, animosity, and resentment within the Kiev regime," Maria Zakharova concluded.