MINSK, 15 June (BelTA) - In today's distraught world, the Great Victory has become a target of destructive forces, Chairwoman of the Council of the Republic Natalya Kochanova said at the plenary session of the international parliamentary conference “Historical Memory: The Great Victory Gained by Unity” in the Oval Hall in Minsk on 15 June, BelTA has learned.
"The Great Victory, achieved by unity, is a powerful spiritual bond of Belarusians and an integral part of our national idea. 27 million dead in 1418 days of the war. That means 19,000 killed every day, 800 people an hour, 13 every minute. How many more children were unborn? How many widows and orphans? No tool can measure human grief. It's impossible to talk about it calmly. This terrible tragedy scorched every Belarusian family. Many of us grew up on war memories, carried this war in our hearts throughout our lives. As our President says, modern Belarus is a monument to that terrible war, to the dead, tortured and burned. A living memory and a living monument," Natalya Kochanova said.
The speaker stressed that we could not have imagined that eight decades on we would have to defend the historical truth and memory of the Great Patriotic War. "In today's distraught world, the Great Victory inherited by us has become the target of destructive forces that exploit it to achieve their short-term political goals, to further moral disorientation and to split the humanity. Today we see that revanchists have reared their heads in the West again," she said. “With their assistance, the followers of fascism make their ways into the government and party systems, use the powers entrusted to them to further this deadly infection throughout the planet. They assertively and violently impose the cancel culture on entire countries and peoples, nurturing a lost generation who use hatred as their life creed."
"We have already reached the point where monuments are being demolished, shrines are being desecrated. Do they not understand that this is ruining their future? After all, nothing good can be built on destruction. They are doomed," Natalya Kochanova stated.
