The message reads, in part:
“This year, we were forced to postpone the nationwide celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory due to the spread of a dangerous infection that threatens people’s lives and health. But I am sure that all events – the Immortal Regiment march, the military parade, meetings with veterans and other important patriotic events – will certainly take place. I have no doubt that the Russian Search Movement will take an active part in their organisation.
I am pleased to note that over the past years, the search movement has become a remarkable and truly unique phenomenon in Russia’s public life, and its noble mission has rallied tens of thousands of people who care – those who sincerely love their motherland and feel personal responsibility for preserving the memory of its military glory. The participants tend military mass graves, take care of veterans, work in field expeditions, painstakingly work in archives reconstructing, bit by bit, WWII soldiers’ destinies, retrieving the lost pages of family histories, and building invaluable databases of participants in the Great Patriotic War.
And today, in a difficult period, you are marching in the same ranks as volunteers and volunteer associations, helping people.”