Sergey Petrovich | Lessons from the Great Victory are relevant, and live on

We marked a solemn occasion – the commemoration of the 81st anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

 Victory Day is a special and momentous day for us – a day of mourning and a day of joy. It is one of the most memorable and important dates in the history of our country and of our shared history.

 On May 9, 1945, the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Nazi Germany was signed. The Great Patriotic War, which lasted 1418 days, was victoriously concluded. And now, as we commemorate the anniversary of the Victory over fascism together, we celebrate the victory over a criminal regime and a misanthropic ideology whose aim was the enslavement and extermination of entire peoples.

 The Second World War was undoubtedly the most tragic period of the last century. At the same time, it was the greatest heroic event of that era. In the war against Nazism, people’s rights to freedom and dignity, and to life itself, were defended.

 Alongside the heroic soldiers of the Great Patriotic War and the selfless workers on the home front,

Soviet diplomats also made their contribution to the achievement of Victory.

 More than 250 employees of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs fought for the Motherland as volunteers. Many of them laid down their lives on the battlefields in the ranks of the active army, the people’s militia, destruction battalions, and partisan detachments.

 The names of 71 staff members are immortalized on the memorial plaque in the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on Smolenskaya Square. Notably, among the front-line veterans was one of my predecessors – the first Ambassador of the USSR to Jamaica, with residence in Kingston, Dmitry Musin (1978–1987). He volunteered for the front in October 1941 as a third-year student at the Moscow Aviation Institute, joining the 3rd Moscow Communist Division.

 During the war, he had a distinguished combat record and was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War 1st Class, as well as the medals “For Courage”, “For the Defense of Moscow”, and “For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945”.

 The Second World War affected 61 countries and nearly 80 per cent of the world’s population. This fiery hurricane left a trail of destruction not only in Europe but also in Asia and Africa.

 The fiercest and most decisive battles, which determined the drama and outcome of the war, took place on the Eastern Front, on the territory of the Soviet Union. The Nazis counted on a rapid conquest of new lands and intended to eradicate entire peoples. However, these plans were not destined to come true. In the winter of 1941, the Soviet Army, at the cost of unparalleled courage and heroism, halted the offensive of the German fascist troops near Moscow, inflicting the first crushing military defeat on Hitlerite Germany since the beginning of the Second World War. This destroyed the myth of the invincibility of the fascist war machine.

 We also remember other glorious pages of this war: The Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Stalingrad, the battle on the Dnieper, and of course the courage of the residents of besieged Leningrad. It was these heroic events that embodied the valor and resilience of our people and ultimately decided the outcome of the Second World War. Having liberated Europe and defeated the enemy in his lair – in the Battle of Berlin – the Red Army brought the war to its victorious conclusion.

 The peoples of the Soviet Union made a decisive contribution to the Victory, paying an enormous price for it: the war claimed 27 million lives of our people. Grief entered every home and every family.

Many other peoples of the world also paid a high price for Victory. Today we sincerely thank all those who, in that difficult time, supported the Soviet Union, which bore the brunt of the most powerful and brutal blow of the war. We are grateful to those who provided us with weapons, food, and medicines, giving everything they had for the sake of our common victory.

 We will never forget the courage and bravery shown in this war by our allies – the states of the anti-Hitler coalition.

 By the time military operations against Japan ended (September 1945), marking the conclusion of the Second World War, the anti-Hitler coalition included 56 states. Jamaica, which at that time was under British colonial rule, also made its contribution to these efforts. Thousands of Jamaicans served in the British armed forces, handling logistics, engineering support, and carrying out combat missions on various fronts. We will not forget their contribution to our common Victory!

 Eighty-one years have passed since May 1945. The world has changed since then. Today it is especially important to resist attempts to revise the results of the war and to prevent the lessons of the past from being forgotten. The Great Victory of the Soviet Union remains a moral compass, a symbol of unity, strength of spirit, and responsibility to future generations. It is our sacred duty to carefully preserve the truth about the events of those years, to remember the harsh lessons of the war, so that the tragedy is never repeated.

Sergey Petrovich is ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Jamaica. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.