🇷🇺🇰🇬🇰🇿🇧🇾🇹🇯🇹🇲🇺🇿 Joint Statement by heads of diplomatic missions of the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States on the occasion of #VictoryDay
(May 9, 2022)

🕯 This year the world celebrates the 77th anniversary of the sacred holiday – Great Victory Day. In the spring of 1945, the multinational people of the USSR together with its anti-Hitler coalition allies liberated the planet from the yoke of Nazi tyranny. Unprecedented heroism of the great victorious generation helped overpower the misanthropic ideology.

⚔️ In the battles of Moscow and on the Kursk Bulge, in besieged Leningrad and on the streets of Stalingrad, representatives of all Soviet nationalities stood shoulder to shoulder to protect the shared Motherland. Their courage and selflessness on the front lines and in the rear, as well as in partisan units allowed first to stop and then to crush Hitler’s army.

🕯Our ancestors not only defended the independence of the Fatherland, but also freed the world from the "brown plague". The Soviet warriors-liberators rescued from captivity hundreds of thousands of prisoners of concentration camps.
The victory was won at a great cost. 27 million of our compatriots died. Almost half of victims were civilians. Hitler’s executioners and their henchmen strove for total annihilation of the peoples of the USSR, sparing neither women, nor children, nor the elderly.

🙏 We recall with appreciation the help of the allies at that fateful time. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the launch of the Alaska-Siberia air route, which was used during the war to deliver about eight thousand planes from the United States to the USSR.

🎖Our sacred duty is to preserve the truth about the Great Patriotic War and pass it on to future generations.
A low bow and deep gratitude to the veterans of the armies of the anti-Hitler coalition, who fought for our freedom in World War II. Your heroic feat will be forever in our hearts.

💐Happy Victory Day!

Anatoly Antonov, Ambassador of the Russian Federation
Baktybek Amanbaev, Ambassador of the Kyrgyz Republic
Yerzhan Ashikbayev, Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Dmitry Basik, Charge d'Affaires of the Republic of Belarus
Farrukh Hamralizoda, Ambassador of the Republic of Tajikistan
Meret Orazov, Ambassador of Turkmenistan
Javlon Vakhabov, Ambassador of the Republic of Uzbekistan

⭐️ On May 9, 1944, #Sevastopol was liberated from the Nazi invaders.

#Fact: Sailor Pyotr Rublev was one of the first to break into the city. He hoisted his sailor cap on the flagpole of the Grafskaya Pier. It has become a symbol of the port's liberation.

📆 On May 9, 1945, the Medal “For the Victory Over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945” was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

🎖 The Medal “For the Victory Over Germany” became the most widely awarded in the USSR. The first medals were delivered directly from the state mint on June 15, 1945 and were awarded to Soviet supreme commanders Marshals Rokossovsky and Tolbukhin, Generals of the Soviet Army Antonov and Purkayev, Colonel-Generals Berzarin, Gusev and Zakharov.

⭐️ Right after the Great Patriotic War, the medal was awarded to 13,666,000 soldiers and officers. The award was presented for many decades after the war, with the total number of recipients eventually reaching 15 million people.

🔗 https://is.gd/pJPJXO

Today is #VictoryDay in Russia & beyond!
It marks the 77th Anniversary of the Victory against the greatest evil - Nazism.
#OTD we pay tribute to the Russian and Soviet heroes who ensured peace for all humankind! We remember contribution of the Allies. #LestWeForget

Embassy’s full comment on recent CBC news piece

"Ambassador Stepanov will continue to fulfill his functions in order to serve a direct high-level channel of communications between Russia and Canada while one of the sides or both of them deem such level of communications useful. The Ambassador’s responsibility, among other things, is to convey his opinion and the position of Russia to the Canadian public. He disagrees with H.E. Joly in classification of that public outreach. Russia prefers conducting intergovernmental relations - be it public or private - in civilized manner. Labelling serves nothing and often just demonstrates certain deficiencies of professionalism in diplomacy. Despite political tensions, Moscow stands open to communicate directly with Ottawa. Canadian political representatives who have demonstrated investments in Ukraine until now were too shy to make a call to Moscow - in contrast to the majority of their allies in the US and Europe. It either means the absence of substantial argument or the desire to play Ukrainian issue solely for the goals to score in internal political debate in Canada."

🇷🇺🇴🇲 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov holds a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister for the Council of Ministers in the Sultanate of Oman Fahd bin Mahmoud Al-Said.

#RussiaOman