Participants of the joint meeting of the SCO, CIS and CSTO defence ministers adopted a joint statement on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and Second World War

Statement of participants of the joint meeting of defence ministers (heads of defence departments) of the SCO, CIS and CSTO Member States on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Second World War

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In 2020, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 and in the Second World War, the most brutal and bloody conflicts in history, which claimed tens of millions of lives and caused terrible suffering to humanity.
In those harsh years, the selflessness and patriotism of our peoples who won the Victory were clearly shown. We express our sincere respect to the living veterans of our countries for the heroism and labour feat shown during the war.
We are deeply indebted to those who gave their lives on the battlefields, bow our heads to the fallen and cherish the memory of the unparalleled courage of millions of soldiers, partisans, resistance fighters, and civilians who laid their lives on the altar of the struggle for freedom, peace and justice.
We declare the need to take care of military graves, memorials, monuments and obelisks in honour of those who died in the fight against Nazism. There is no justification for vandalism of such memorials.
Our sacred duty is to protect and firmly defend the historical truth about those events, which is stored in the memory of our peoples and in archival documents. We strongly condemn attempts to falsify the history, causes and results of the Second World War, as well as to rehabilitate and glorify Nazi criminals and their accomplices. The decisions of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East do not have a statute of limitations and must be strictly observed.
We reaffirm our commitment to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the universally recognized principles and norms of international law.
We pay special attention to the resolution adopted by the 74th session of the UN General Assembly on combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to the escalation of modern forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. We consider any attempts to display extreme nationalism and various national discrimination, such as anti-Semitism and islamophobia, unacceptable.
We call on all states and peoples to actively cooperate in order to strengthen stability in the world, as well as to step up efforts to combat challenges and threats.
In the year of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 and in the Second World War, we once again advocate for a comprehensive dialogue aimed at strengthening the international security system.
Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
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