MINSK, 22 June (BelTA) - Commemorative events honoring the Day of National Remembrance of the Victims of the Great Patriotic War and the Genocide of the Belarusian People, the 84th anniversary of the feat of border guards in the first battles on the state border of the USSR, took place in all border service units at dawn on 22 June, BelTA learned from the State Border Committee of Belarus.
In Minsk at four o'clock in the morning flowers to the monument on Victory Square were laid by Chairman of the State Border Committee Konstantin Molostov, officers of the State Border Committee, units of the Minsk garrison, cadets and veteran border guards. Border guards of the guard of honor company took the Watch of Memory at the Eternal Flame.
According to Konstantin Molostov, on 22 June 1941, 485 border outposts took an unequal battle with the fascists, none of them retreated from the state border without an order. “Today, for us, border guards, these events are iconic and heroic at the present stage. We proudly wear our green cap. Just two years ago, thanks to the decree of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, one of the outposts was named after the border guard hero Lieutenant Aleksei Lopatin, which, unfortunately, was forgotten in neighboring Ukraine. Our generation and, I am sure, the future generation will continue to remember the feat of border guards in 1941,” he said.
It was the soldiers in green caps that first faced the German fascist invaders on 22 June 1941, laying the foundation of the Great Victory with their courage. About 17,000 out of more than 19,000 border guards of the Belarusian border district were killed in the first hours and days of the war. Not a single defender of the borders retreated without an order and did not surrender.
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