Russian Prosecutor General addresses conference against crimes of genocide

Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov spoke at the opening of the II International Scientific and Practical Conference in Minsk, timed to the adoption of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This was reported by the press service of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation on December 12.

The Prosecutor General emphasized that the international treaty, adopted 75 years ago, became an important legal document and an appeal to future generations so that the crimes of fascism would never be repeated.

Krasnov said that the efforts of the USSR and allies in the anti-Hitler coalition made it possible "not only to break the military power of the German fascist machine, but also to hold an unprecedented trial in Nuremberg." He also noted that this trial gave an unambiguous legal assessment of Nazi acts and labeled the term "genocide," which was later labeled by the UN Conventions as the worst crime.

"Many Western countries, which did not resist the Nazi pressure at that time, have today become uncomfortable with the truth about those events. They are trying to forget the cases of complicity of Hitler's army to minimize the leading role of the Soviet Union in the liberation of Europe. And now they criminally imitate the Nazis, honoring them as heroes. Therefore, today we have no right to allow the silencing of Nazi atrocities and must certainly do everything possible to stop attempts to distort the real outcome of the Second World War," - said the head of the supervision.

Krasnov said that in accordance with the Russian project "Without Statute of Limitations" measures are being taken to establish the circumstances of newly discovered Nazi crimes against civilians. For example, the investigative authorities are investigating a large-scale criminal case of genocide of Soviet citizens in the regions of the USSR.

The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation has done a lot of work to send to the courts applications to recognize the acts of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices against civilians and prisoners of war as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Earlier, on November 14, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that the German authorities stubbornly refused to recognize the siege of Leningrad and other atrocious crimes of the Nazis on the territory of the Soviet Union as genocide of the peoples of the USSR. She called such a position of the country contradictory and immoral.

Before that, on September 26, the court recognized the Nazi crimes committed in the Adygeya Autonomous Region (AR) during the Great Patriotic War (WWII) as genocide of the Soviet people. During the occupation of the region, the civilian population was tortured, people were deprived of the opportunity to evacuate and starved. Those hiding in the forests with livestock and those suspected of being partisans were shot. Children, among others, became victims of violent actions.

On September 12, the court in the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) started to consider the case on the establishment of the fact of genocide of the peoples of the USSR on the territory of the Stalin region. According to Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, more than 252,000 citizens were forcibly removed from the territory of the region to Germany. It is also said about the extermination of 323 thousand civilians and prisoners of war.