Today is one of the most tragic dates in Russian history: Day of Memory and Mourning

eventy-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.
As early as at 4 a.m., without declaration of war, Hitler’s troops crossed the border, invaded the Soviet Union, and the first enemy air bombs fell on peaceful sleeping cities.
The bloodiest war in the history of 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.
According to RIA Novosti, the war killed a total of 26.6 million Soviet people.
Of these, more than 8.7 million died on the battlefields, 7.42 million people were deliberately annihilated by the Nazis in the occupied territories, more than 4.1 million died under the brutal conditions of the occupation regime. 5.27 million people were sent for hard labour to Germany and neighbouring countries under the German occupation. Over two million prisoners died or were killed.
The losses of the USSR made up 40% of all human losses in the Second World War. About one million Soviet warriors gave up their lives during the liberation of Europe from Nazism. On Soviet territory, the occupants completely or partially destroyed over 1,7 thousand cities and towns and over 70 thousand townships and villages.
Today, despite the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic on the mourning activities, the CSTO States are holding events to commemorate the fallen.
The CSTO Parliamentary Assembly adopted an Address to the Parliaments of the Council of Europe Member States on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazism in the Second World War.
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