Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 9 May (BelTA) – Belarus paid a heavy price for the victory. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made the statement during the ceremony held on 9 May to lay wreaths at the Victory Monument in Minsk on the occasion of the 71^st anniversary of the Soviet nation’s victory in the Great Patriotic War, BelTA has learned.

“Belarus paid a heavy price for the victory. The Nazi turned our flourishing land into a dreadful conveyor of death by setting up about 260 death camps and 110 ghettos here. Arrests, tortures, executions by firing squad, and gallows were everyday attributes of this regime. The entire world was shocked to learn that SS troops razed thousands of Belarusian villages to the ground, including over 600 villages burnt together with their live residents — elderly people, women, and kids,” noted Alexander Lukashenko.

“We will never forget those, who have fallen fighting for our freedom on the frontlines and as part of the underground resistance movement. We will not forget professional intelligence officers. We will not forget those, who met untimely deaths in death camps and Gestapo prisons. We will not forget those, who died due to hard labor, frost, hunger and starvation on the homefront, as they gave their utmost for the frontlines and for the victory,” stressed the head of state.

The President urged everyone to bow before the innumerable victims of the Great Patriotic War, who gave their lives in the name of the victory, and honor them with a minute of silence.