English

Lukashenka warns against attempts to distort WWII history

Alyaksandr Lukashenka warned on Wednesday against what he described as attempts to distort the history of World War II and "steal the great victory from our people."

While inaugurating the new building of the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk, Mr. Lukashenka lashed out at unnamed "fake historians" for portraying "traitors as heroes and invaders as liberators" and "tailoring history to a specific political order and attempting to steal the great victory from our people," according to the government's news agency BelTA.

He said that Belarus and Russia would continue defending their victory.

The decision to found the museum was made by Soviet authorities during one of the toughest periods of the war, when Belarus was still occupied by German troops, said Mr. Lukashenka. "How much strong and adamant people's faith in the victory of truth and good was!" he was quoted as saying.

There are some 9,000 WWII memorials in Belarus and none of them has ever been defaced or destroyed, he stressed.

Mr. Lukashenka thanked all those involved in the construction of the museum's new building. "Its responsible mission is to deliver the entire truth about the war to future generations," he said. //BelaPAN