Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s video address to participants in the No Statute of Limitations international forum, October 24, 2023

Colleagues,

Friends,

Seventy-seven years ago, on October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg delivered a historic verdict, condemning the main Nazi war criminals and legally securing the defeat of the Hitler regime. This truly epoch-making event rightfully went down in history as the Trial of Nations. The Nuremberg trials opened a new page in the development of international law. The foundation of the modern system of international criminal justice was laid then.

The Tribunal established that the Nazi atrocities were on a scale previously unknown in history. War crimes and crimes against humanity were systematically committed, including against the civilian population. Those Nazi organisations that systematically developed and implemented these misanthropic plans are forever outlawed.

It is generally recognised that the Nazi atrocities have no statute of limitations. Our country continues ambitious work to investigate newly discovered facts of criminal acts committed by the Nazi invaders. The significant evidence of mass murder of civilians, torture, slave labour and other manifestations of the Nazi ideology clear up any doubt that the events of that time should be regarded as genocide.

Therefore, holding the No Statute of Limitations forum in the Kaliningrad Region is a symbolic and logical decision. Dozens of gas chambers were found in the territories that once belonged to East Prussia and were liberated from the Nazis by the Red Army in 1945. Slave labour of Soviet citizens was widely used. Then-Koenigsberg, where the inglorious Nord camp was located, was no exception.

In this context, the fact that a number of European countries, primarily Ukraine and the Baltic states, are systematically destroying historical memory, causes particular concern. The lessons of World War II are being buried in oblivion. Racist, neo-Nazi and extremist ideas are openly promoted. It has gone so far that honours are now bestowed without hesitation to former Nazis. Everyone has heard about the shameful honouring of a veteran of the SS Galicia Division in the Canadian Parliament with the participation of Vladimir Zelensky. Among the latest examples of irresponsible revisionism is the initiative to return Prussian names to the cities of the Kaliningrad Region.

I would like to remind representatives of the criminal Kiev regime and its Western patrons that, according to the materials of the Nuremberg trials, almost 200,000 civilians were tortured to death, shot and poisoned in Kiev alone. Many of them were killed by the SS.

In 1942, the Nazi criminal Reichskommissar Erich Koch wrote in the address to the heads of the German media that Ukraine was nothing but an object of exploitation, that it should pay the expenses of the war, and its population, being second-rate people, should be utilised for the tasks of the war, even if they have to be caught with a lasso. The “historical West” led by the US is de facto sharing a similar sentiment and is ready to contain Russia to the last Ukrainian.

Against this backdrop, the fight against falsifying the results of the Second World War and spreading a misanthropic ideology are among the key priorities of Russian diplomacy. Every year, our country submits draft resolutions on countering the glorification of Nazism to the UN General Assembly. Despite the unprecedented pressure by the collective West, 120 states voted in favour of this document in 2022. We believe that it is tangible evidence of the global community’s resentment towards any attempts to rehabilitate Nazis and their accomplices.

Colleagues,

One of the main goals of your forum is to promote the historical truth about Nazi crimes against humanity. It is important to form an understanding of the main characteristics of Nazism in public opinion and root out its contemporary manifestations. On our part, we are ready to continue these efforts, including at the key multilateral platforms.

In conclusion, I would like to wish you constructive discussions and all the best.