"Regretfully,
many unpleasant similarities with the events of the 1930s can be found in the
modern world," Ivan Soltanovsky said.
PARIS, August 31.
/TASS/. Certain states’ military buildup and attempts to divide nations into
"first-rate" and "second-rate" ones are reminiscent of
developments that took place during the decade that preceded the Second World
War, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe Ivan
Soltanovsky has told TASS.
"This year [on
September 1] we mark the 80th anniversary since the outbreak of World War II.
Not only is this date important from the point of view of history, it is also
of great political significance," Soltanovsky said. "The anniversary
is an important occasion to think about the chain of destructive events, caused
by the dogmatism, stubbornness and short-sighted approach of European political
elites in 1930s, which led humanity to the six-year-long massacre. This is also
a chance to compare those events to present-day political processes and to
discover several unpleasant parallels."
"Regretfully,
many unpleasant similarities with the events of the 1930s can be found in the
modern world. Countries are still divided into ‘first-rate’ and ‘second-rate’
ones, countries from the first group still have more rights than others and are
still ready to sustain their economic well-being at the expense of the second
group," Soltanovsky said, mentioning the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia,
the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the role of certain countries in the
present-day Syrian crisis.
"Western nations
are still seeking to ensure their security at the expense of others. All of
Russia’s latest initiatives in creating a common system of security in Europe
have been ignored," the Russian diplomat went on.
He also said the
majority of EU member states turn a blind eye to discrimination of certain
minorities and glorification of Nazis and their collaborationists in Latvia,
Estonia and Ukraine. Those states’ attempts to "wipe out the names of
soldiers and marshals who liberated them" have also been left largely
unnoticed, Soltanovsky said.
"At all
international platforms and in the course of bilateral contacts, Russian
diplomats have been trying to explain how dead-ended and dangerous those
policies might be," Russia’s envoy to the Council of Europe said. "We
hope that our efforts would not prove to be futile and the world would not
plunge into new madness."
"Facts about
WWII and the role of the Red Army in the victory over the Nazi Germany must
never be extorted," he added. "This is not the case where ‘varying
points of view’ are permissible, as some states want it to be. Free
interpretation of historic events may have irreparable consequences.".
Source: ITAR-TASS
31-08-2019
