A speech made by President of Belarus Aleksandr Grigoryevich Lukashenko during the army parade dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Soviet nation’s Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945
Comrade soldiers, sergeants, warrant officers and officers!
Dear veterans of the Great Patriotic War!
Dear compatriots and guests of Belarus!
It is the Victory, today’s Victory that is celebrated by the Republic of Belarus, by brotherly Russia, by our friends and allies, all the people of good will. It is great and well-deserved. It is a day of the Great Victory.
It is a victory secured by valiant warriors: soldiers of the Red Army, partisans, underground resistance fighters, homefront workers, and the entire Soviet nation – a nation that freed the world from Nazism.
Sky was lit with the first festive salutes on 9 May 1945. A peaceful life began, as part of which we have not tired of counting years and days of events of the Great Patriotic War. For 80 years we’ve been celebrating the Victory, recalling the heroes and bowing our heads to the fallen.
We are conducting a parade to the glory of those, who did not waver and who fought courageously, slowing down the progress of the death machine bent on razing cities, villages, destinies and lives.
We honor the memory of the heroes, who broke the military might of Hitler’s Germany, which had gathered millions of European Nazis under its banners.
Our nation demonstrated a never-before-seen will to win. No one in Europe had managed to resist the Wehrmacht the way our nation, our state – the Soviet Union – did it.
The well-equipped and tactically proven army of fascists stumbled upon the Soviet border. It stuck for long years on approaches to Moscow.
In the first days in Belarus alone Hitler’s army lost more soldiers and officers than over the two years of marching across the entire Europe.
About 1.3 million Belarus’ natives fought in the ranks of the Red Army. Nearly 500 became Heroes of the Soviet Union.
About 1 million partisans fought behind enemy lines. Over 800,000 partisans and underground resistance fighters operated in the republic.
For a month as many as 16 partisan brigades successfully resisted Wehrmacht and SS units that had been redeployed from the frontline in overwhelming force and were assisted by traitors and collaborationists from Latvia, Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.
Over the years of the occupation our land fostered a nationwide resistance movement. No other country in the world had such a massive, multiethnic movement of partisans and underground resistance fighters.
Representatives of over 70 nations and ethnicities fought like brothers in the same ranks with us.
It was a genuine second front, fighting at which had a massive effect and decided the fate of the largest battles of the Great Patriotic War.
Our heroes endured. They endured and prevailed. They taught Europe a lesson, which should have been learned it seemed to us. But in fact Western elites cannot be taught.
Envisaged as a political and economic association, the European Union has actually transformed into a totalitarian military and political bloc with blatantly revanchist sentiments.
Brussels takes persistent steps to convert the territory of Poland and the Baltic states into staging areas for an assault at the eastern borders of the North Atlantic bloc.
In the year of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory the European Union intends to raise military appropriations to over 3% of the gross domestic product of states of the European Union.
Warsaw and Vilnius are intent on deploying mines and explosive obstacles at the border with Belarus and Russia.
This is why today in the face of a monstrous threat of the revival of European fascism we call for recalling lessons of the Great Patriotic War.
This is why we need this Victory and the honoring of those heroes today.
We call upon everyone: politicians, leaders, and nations of Western countries.
The peaceful rhetoric of Belarus should not be misconstrued. Yes, we call for peace. Yes, we wholeheartedly want to stop all wars and conflicts on the planet.
But we have been doing and will do everything necessary and even more than that to enhance the country’s defense potential, to maintain the combat capability of the Armed Forces at a level sufficient for ensuring the protection of the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Belarusian state.
We no longer want to bow to whips and to wear bast shoes and we won’t!
The Belarusian army is the key pillar and a reliable shield of the republic. Today we will also demonstrate modernized samples of weaponry and military hardware that have been created by the Belarusian defense industry and in tight cooperation with Russia.
The parade will feature valiant military personnel – soldiers, officers, and generals of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, military personnel from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
We stood together back then. We stand together today. And we should do everything to prevent a new world bloodbath that can put an end to history.
Dear veterans of the Great Patriotic War!
This parade serves the glory of our heroic feat and yours. A feat by the warriors, who liberated Belarus and now live in various corners of the planet.
Your accomplishments and the Great Victory represent the values that we want our children and grandchildren to safeguard just like you do it.
We bow low to you!
We offer eternal remembrance to the heroes, who are no longer with us!
Dear friends! Esteemed guests!
On behalf of the Belarusian nation I wholeheartedly congratulate everyone on the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory.
I wish you strong health, happiness, good luck and prosperity.
May the sky above our peace-loving, beloved, beautiful, and native Belarus always be peaceful!
Happy holiday!
Happy Victory Day!
Hurray!
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