Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko traditionally took part in the solemn celebrations on the May 9 holiday, Victory Day.

The head of state laid a wreath at the Victory Monument in Minsk. Three of his sons joined Aleksandr Lukashenko in the ceremony.

Wreaths and flowers were also laid at the monument by heads of republican government bodies, representatives of the All-Belarusian People's Assembly and the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus, the judiciary, veteran organizations, law enforcement agencies, public associations and political parties, as well as civic activists.

Aleksandr Lukashenko and all ceremony participants at Victory Square observed a minute of silence to honor the fallen heroes.

The President delivered a speech at the event:

“Dear compatriots, Belarusians!

Dear veterans! Guests of our country!

We celebrate the day of the Great Victory, which gave our people life and freedom. We celebrate it year after year, with parades and fireworks. With tears and bitterness. From the very moment Levitan’s voice rang out over the Soviet country. The announcer then uttered the word everyone had dreamed of hearing: ‘Victory!’

It changed the world. The Great Patriotic War was over. Our once great Soviet homeland, torn and exhausted, liberated Europe. Everyone, including Western leaders, recognized the decisive, principal role of the Soviet Union in defeating fascism. That was then.

Everyone, including the people of Western countries, knew the mark Hitler’s executioners left on our land. Over 30 million dead. About 3 million orphans. 25 million people left without a home.

2,000 destroyed cities and more than 70,000 razed villages and hamlets. And millions of lives broken by the will of a madman and his army, assembled from across Europe.

The criminal investigation into the genocide of the Belarusian people adds new figures to our losses. Plus 47 punitive operations we did not know about. Plus 166 sites of annihilation and burial.

On the map of burned villages, there are now 13,000 addresses; 300 settlements have shared the tragic fate of Khatyn.

One in three perished. An irreplaceable loss for us and a terrible price to extinguish the furnaces of Auschwitz and Treblinka. So that trains carrying enslaved labor and the riches of our native land would never again roll from east to west.

Back then, in 1945, every Soviet soldier who passed through liberated Belarus knew he would go further, all the way to Berlin. Along the path of the sacred struggle of good against evil.

We can talk long and in detail about the price of Victory, about our pain, about our pride, but the greatest speech in memory of everyone who brought the victorious May closer but did not see its fireworks is a minute of silence. A people’s silence in glory of an immortal feat.

(Minute of silence.)

Dear Belarusians!

The Victory Banner is in our hands today. Passing it from generation to generation, we fight on all fronts for the truth about that war, for the status of victors, for the sovereign right – the right to choose our own path on our own land.

Belarusians, more than anyone, know how quickly slogans about a ‘new order’ turn into gallows, camps, ashes and nameless ditches.

And even if fascism now has a different face – a polished one – that does not change its essence. We see that face. Ideas of superpower status and one’s own superiority are growing stronger and inflicting new wounds on the world. But now right next to our borders.

We know who our adversary and enemy is. It is not the peoples. There are families living in Europe who, like Belarusians, keep true memories of the war unleashed by Hitler’s fascists.

Our enemy is the revanchists, the direct and ideological descendants of SS men, Banderites and forest brothers. Those who, right now, are removing the remains of Soviet soldiers from Lithuanian Šiauliai and calling the feat of the Soviet people a myth.

Those who methodically erase the Red Army’s victory from the history of World War II and deny us access to the burial places of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. To monuments that are still intact.

But we remember. We remember and honor the liberators of our native land. Today and always, we will remember.

All the flowers and wreaths we have laid are also in memory of those who remained lying there, on foreign soil, giving their lives for the lives of the peoples of Europe. They must be brought home.

Dear compatriots!

Victory Day is a day of national pride!

We remember our soldiers, officers, Belarusian partisans and underground fighters, women who took up arms. Everyone who did not choose between the gallows and the enemy’s mercy, but died a hero, not a traitor.

We bow our heads to the mothers who sent their sons and daughters to the front. Even today, we remember with pain in our hearts the children of war, who grew up overnight, picking up a rifle or standing at a machine tool in the rear.

We are proud of everyone who, after the Victory, lifted Belarus from the ruins, rebuilding cities and restoring the national economy.

Victory Day is a day of brotherly unity of peoples! A holiday reminding us how strong we are when we are together. We, the heirs of the victors, must not forget who we are if we want to live in peace and security. If we do not want war.

Victory Day is a day of historical justice!

Our duty is to preserve the truth about that war, to tell everything, even what is sometimes hard to say.

We must teach our youth to see the face of fascism behind the mask of good intentions. That is what we must do for their peaceful future and for our native land.

I want to say to everyone who is going today to memorials and commemorative sites together with our veterans and families, who bring along their little ones – thank you. Someone might say the weather is unlucky (it was rainy during the ceremony – Ed.). No, we are very lucky with the weather. This is good weather.

Thank you for doing everything so that the thread of time is not broken. Thanks to you and our shared memory, this Eternal Flame burns – a symbol of the great feat of our ancestors.

Dear veterans!

Unfortunately, such is the nature of life – very few of you remain. But your feat is a moral height. And we, Belarusians, have no other path than the one you began – toward peace and creation. We will do everything to preserve the peace you won for us.

Happy holiday, dear compatriots!

Happy Great Victory Day!”

The ceremony continued with the performance of the State Anthem of the Republic of Belarus accompanied by artillery salute volleys and a ceremonial march by the combined guard of honor company and the orchestra of the Minsk Military Commandant’s Office. A musical theatrical performance titled “Memory in Our Voices!” was also presented.

At the conclusion of the solemn event, the head of state bowed to the veterans with words of gratitude and greeted members of the diplomatic corps present at Victory Square.

Information from the Official Website of the President of the Republic of Belarus   and BELTA