Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany in 1941 at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin walls in Moscow, June 22, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Alexei Nikolskyi/RIA Novosti/Kremlin
Business Insider: Russia says D-Day memorials are part of a 'false' history of World War II meant to airbrush out the Soviet Union
* Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said the expansive events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of France were painting a "false" picture of who was responsible for winning World War II.
* In an article published Tuesday, Lavrov said the West propagated a "false" history of the conflict that minimized the contributions of the Soviet Union, which sustained the heaviest losses of any nation.
* "Young people are being told that the main credit in victory over Nazism and liberation of Europe goes not to the Soviet troops, but to the West due to the landing in Normandy," Lavrov wrote.
* Thursday marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces led by US, Canadian, and British troops landed on the Nazi-occupied French coast at Normandy.
Ahead of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of France, Russia's foreign minister has written an article arguing that the commemorations of the event are part of a "false" history that belittles the contributions of the Soviet Union toward defeating Nazi Germany.
Sergey Lavrov chastised Western powers in an article published in Russia's International Affairs magazine on Tuesday, ahead of events in Europe to mark the D-Day landings on the Nazi-occupied Normandy coast.
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My Comment: I have a different take from the above Business Insider article. Everyone in Russia knows that the Allied effort to defeat Germany (and Japan) was just that .... an Allied effort. And while the great battles and sky-high casualty rates were on the Eastern front .... the invasion of Normandy was essential to expedite the end of the war. If the D-Day invasion never occurred, the Russians would still have defeated Germany .... but the human and economic cost would have been even more enormous to both Germany and Russia .... and the recovery for both countries would have taken decades instead of a few years. On a side note. I asked my father who served in the Soviet Army during the Second World War on what was his view of D-Day. He told me that when he first learned about it, he knew that it would speed up the end of the war, and that his odds to survive the slaughter on the eastern front had just increased substantially.
Update: I would have also voted yes .... Allies should have invited Putin to D-Day anniversary events — poll (TASS).
More On The Russian/Kremlin View Of D-Day
Russia to West: D-Day wasn't decisive in ending World War Two -- Reuters
Russia Trolls West on D-Day: 'Normandy Landing Did Not Have a Decisive Impact on the Outcome of World War II' -- Newsweek
Who Won The War? Russians Take A Different View On D-Day -- Reuters
Russia: U.S, allies 'exaggerating' importance of D-Day to WWII victory -- Washington Times
5 comments:
Such a sterile debate. Allied efforts were intertwined with mammoth supplies shipped from North America to Britain and Russia. Russian troops moved on Fords, Chrysler’s and General Motors.
On the other hand Russia and Germany started WWII with their invasion of Poland which was mapped out with the German- Russian Non Aggression Pact.
So why were the Soviets so anxious for the other allies to open a second front?
If the Americans and Brits air brushed history, then what of Stalin and his mass killings? that too is air brushed
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Both East and West focus on their own campaigns and their own sacrifices. Nothing new there. If the US and Britain lost 200k men on the Eastern Front it would get more attention, and if Russia had better post-war relations with the other Allies they would put more attention on the western material assistance that fueled their war machine.
Gotta have something new to write about every single anniversary though, so here we are.
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