On June 22, the Day of Memory and Mourning, representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization took part in the solemn mourning ceremony at Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery.
Seventy-nine years ago, at 4 a.m. on June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began with an attack on the Soviet Union by Hitler’s Germany and the satellite countries of the Nazi Reich. It became the bloodiest stage of the Second World War.
Having brought untold suffering to the peoples of the USSR, the bloodiest war in the history of humankind ended on May 9, 1945 in Berlin with the complete and unconditional surrender of Germany.
“The war went through every home, every family. The victory cost us 27 million human lives,” Vyacheslav VOLODIN, Chairman of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly and Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, said in his address on the Day of Memory and Mourning. “This day shall forever remain the Day of Memory and Mourning for all of us. We cherish the memory of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, our loved ones, all those who sacrificed themselves for the sake of saving the world, for the life of their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. We must always remember this and do our best to pass this memory from generation to generation,” he said.
Mass graves at Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery – the world’s largest cemetery of victims of the Second World War – hold more than 420 thousand citizens of Leningrad who died from hunger, cold, illness, bombings and artillery fire, together with over 70 thousand warriors who died defending the city.
Representatives of the CSTO PA Secretariat laid fresh flowers at the foot of the Motherland monument.
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