The message reads, in part:
“Your meetings, which take place ahead of Victory Day, are becoming a wonderful, truly festive tradition and an important, unifying event in the lives of our nations’ citizens. It brings together influential community leaders, veterans, and representatives of creative and youth organisations, which are called upon to carry out an important mission: to preserve our connection with history and foster a caring attitude toward the enduring spiritual values and heroic pages of our peoples’ joint histories among the young generations.
This forum coincides with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Ukraine and Belarus from Nazi occupiers. In the battles for Kiev and Minsk, for the Dnieper and the Berezina rivers, members of all ethnic groups fought bravely together, shoulder to shoulder. The heroic acts of our fathers and grandfathers will always serve as a bright example of valour, spiritual and moral greatness, brotherhood on the battlefields, and a great responsibility to future generations.
It is our common duty to protect the truth about that war, to firmly counter attempts to rewrite history. This represents a pledge of friendship, good neighbourly relations and mutual respect.”