It is a great honour and privilege for me to send my greetings to the participants in the commemorative meeting organised by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation to mark the 79th anniversary of Victory over militarist Japan and the end of World War II.

Today, we remember the feat accomplished by the Soviet soldiers. They formed a single front with the people of China and Mongolia and had to bear the brunt of the aggressive push by the Japanese militarist regime, including in the heat of the battles of Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol River, and all this happened before Hitler staged his treacherous invasion of the Soviet Union. The fact that we emerged victorious from these battles was instrumental in terms of military and foreign policy affairs for securing our far eastern borders. In 1945, our country made a decisive contribution to delivering a final blow to the Japanese militarist regime.

Unfortunately, the collective West has been stepping up its efforts and multiplying attempts to rewrite history by whitewashing those who stained their names forever by perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity. Tokyo’s official position consists of refusing to repent the aggression against several countries, including the USSR. Moreover, it persists with its absurd accusations alleging that it was our country that unleashed World War II. We can see that they have been consistently seeking to falsify facts dealing with the creation of the Tripartite Pact by militarist Japan, Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, as well as the fact that Tokyo offered military, technical and logistics support to the Third Reich during its invasion of the Soviet Union.

At the same time, the Japanese authorities have been intentionally silencing the fact that it was the United States which bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Instead, the annual commemorations in these cities offer a stage for making sacrilegious statements alleging that the threat of using nuclear weapons comes from Russia.

Against this backdrop, we believe that it is high time that we highlight the courage and valour demonstrated by the Red Army soldiers and officers who defeated the Kwantung Army. Together with its friends in China and Mongolia, the Foreign Ministry has been acting on multiple fronts in its awareness, outreach and educational efforts, as well as commemorative and memorial work to expose more crimes perpetrated by Japan during World War II. We believe that Tokyo’s compliance with the peace-related provisions of its own constitution would strengthen regional and global security.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the senior officials from the Russian Defence Ministry for their initiative to convene this gathering and for making all these effective arrangements. I wish you fruitful work and all the best.

 

Sergey Lavrov