BREST. June 16 (Interfax) - The members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union State of Belarus and Russia have adopted a statement in defense of historical memory of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War.
In their statement, the legislators called for "irreconcilably opposing falsification of history, preventing the demolition of monuments and vandalism of Soviet soldiers' graves, the revival of exceptionalist ideologies, such as Nazism, Russophobia, anti-Semitism, and other types of practices that encourage the escalation of modern forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and intolerance related to them."
The Parliamentary Assembly also supported "initiatives aimed at creating a new architecture of equal and indivisible security" that would reliably protect all states with each other's interests taken into consideration.
"It is our common duty to venerate the memory of soldiers and officers, partisans, members of the underground who died for peace on the planet, and home front workers, and to foster patriotism and gratitude for the feat of the Soviet liberators among the younger generation. It is important to defend the truth about the courage and heroism of peoples who fought fascism and not to allow a new world war to be incited. The preservation of the historical memory of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War predetermines our peaceful future," it said.
The Belarus-Russia Union Parliamentary Assembly is holding a session under Vyacheslav Volodin's chairmanship in Brest on June 16.