Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s message of greetings to the participants in the international research and applied forum “No Statute of Limitations. Genocide of the Soviet people by the Nazis and their proxies during the Great Patriotic War: Historical reflection and judicial practice.”

I am glad to welcome both the organisers of the international research and practical forum “No Statute of Limitations” and those who are participating in it. Today’s meeting logically continues a series of events aimed at preserving the truth about the Great Patriotic War. You have focused on generalising the historical experience and on the modern practice of organising court trials of Nazi criminals, including the recognition of the facts of genocide of Soviet civilians during the war years.

Symbolically, the forum is taking place in the Leningrad Region. The memories of the prisoners of the local death camp Dulag-154, who miraculously survived, provides the clearest evidence of the inhuman crimes committed by the Nazi occupants in Gatchina. Overwhelming evidence of mass murder, torture, slave labour and other manifestations of misanthropic ideology and practice leaves no doubt that the events of that time must be regarded as nothing less than genocide of the Soviet people.

Unfortunately, many European countries have lost much of their immunity to the Nazi virus. The situation in Ukraine and the Baltic countries is particularly alarming. In general, the international community is increasingly facing the attempts to revise and distort the legal, political, moral and ethical lessons of the Nuremberg Trials.

It is gratifying that despite unprecedented pressure from the collective West, our international partners and associates continue supporting Russia’s foreign policy initiative, including in the UN. The CIS and CSTO have enshrined in their documents that the expulsion and annihilation of civilians by the Nazi and their accomplices is genocide of the peoples of the USSR. The need to ensure the immutability of the Nuremberg legacy, and the uncompromising struggle against any form of glorification of Nazism will remain an unconditional priority of Russian diplomacy.

I wish you productive work and all the best.

Sergey LAVROV