From: Human Rights in Ukraine 🇺🇦 by Halya Coynash
Any world leaders who stand with Putin on Red Square on 9 May will be complicit in Russia’s rewriting of history and attempts to compare Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with victory over Nazi Germany
While claiming to be ‘fighting distortion of history’, the current Russian regime has removed any mention of Ukraine from its official list of countries involved in the victory over Nazi Germany. Moscow is willing to desecrate the memory of millions of Ukrainian soldiers who fought for victory, and those who lost their lives, in order to push a narrative aimed at justifying its war of aggression against Ukraine. Any western leaders taking part in Moscow’s Victory Day ceremony on 9 May 2025 will be complicit in these lies.
The independent Russian media Agentstvo notedthe omissions on Russia’s newly launched website for the 80th anniversary of Victory over Nazi Germany. The failure to mention Ukraine is all the more absurd (as well as offensive) given that four Ukrainian cities – Kyiv; Odesa; Kerch; and Sevastopol – are mentioned in another part of the site as ‘hero-cities’ for their role in the War.
In fact, Agentstvo first reported the same distortion in the compulsory propaganda lessons ‘Conversations about important things’ planned for the 79th anniversary of Victory Day on 9 May 2024. Teachers were supposed to list the “peoples of the Soviet Union who had fought fascism”, with Ukrainians not mentioned.
Voice of Ukraine 