Russian ambassador says Moscow is countering attempts to revise wartime history

Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechaev said Moscow was acting on several fronts against what he described as attempts to revise the outcome of World War II and downplay the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazism.

In an interview with RIA Novosti, the diplomat linked his assessment to restrictions on Victory Day events on May 9 in Germany and to what he said was the German authorities’ unwillingness to recognize the crimes of the Nazi regime and its collaborators as genocide against the peoples of the Soviet Union.

Nechaev said Russia was responding through political, military-historical, information and public channels. He named Russian community groups, local civic and anti-fascist activists, memorial organizations, and some politicians and regional and municipal officials as allies.

The ambassador also pointed to cooperation with the German War Graves Commission on maintaining Soviet military burial sites in Germany. These assessments and characterizations were Nechaev’s.