Putin denounces attempts to rewrite WWII history as plot to undermine Russia

© RIA Novosti / Aleksey Druzhinin

The Russian president has again denounced attempts to rewrite WWII history, noting that the authors seek to sow strife between peoples and nations for their own geopolitical purposes.

Putin said the cynical lies about the Great Patriotic War and the attempts to blacken the reputation of the Soviet people and the Red Army have nothing to do with the truth. The president's comments came at the Tuesday session of the committee preparing the May 9 celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The Great Patriotic war is the traditional Russian title for the 1941-45 campaign against Germany and its allies.

"I reject these shameless conclusions and so called observations that have nothing to do with the truth. Their objective is clear - they want to undermine the power and moral authority of modern Russia and deprive it of the winner nation status with all consequences that would follow in international law," Putin told the committee members. "They want to divide peoples and instigate conflicts among them, to use historical lies in geopolitical games."

The president urged all committee members to maintain their efforts in upholding the truth about the war and the Soviet Union's input in repelling the Nazi threat.

"Unfortunately, they keep testing our society for maturity and unity and for the strength of our historical traditions and the connection between generations. The task of the committee is to calmly reply to these challenges on the basis of citizens' support and active cooperation," Putin said.

The president also noted that the most important part of the Victory Day celebration was the extensive and continuous support given to the veterans. He gave a riminder that Russia still has 2.5 million veterans, each of whom made a personal input in the victory over Nazism.

In late February this year, Putin pledged more support to the veterans as he spoke at a major Gala dedicated to the "Defender of the Fatherland Day" holiday. "This is our victory, our history, which we'll vigorously defend from lies and oblivion," he said, referring to what Moscow has viewed as attempts by officials in Ukraine and Poland to rewrite history and undermine Russia's role and sacrifices during the war.

In January, the Russian president blasted any attempts to rewrite the history of WWII and hide the crimes of Nazism as inadmissible and immoral, saying that people who do this often try to distract attention from their nations' collaboration with Hitler.

"Direct attempts to silence history, to distort and rewrite history are inadmissible and immoral. Behind these attempts often lies the desire to hide one's own disgrace, the disgrace of cowardice, hypocrisy and treachery, the intent to justify the direct or indirect collaboration with Nazism," the Russian leader stated, as he spoke in the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow at an event dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation.

"In places where they imprint the ideas of ethnic and moral supremacy into people's heads, where they destroy or scoff at human values, civilization is being quickly and inevitably replaced by barbarity," Putin noted, adding that the process is often accompanied by war and aggression.