Putin signed a law banning the equalization of the roles of the USSR and Germany in the war

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law banning the public identification of the role of the USSR and Nazi Germany in World War II.

Changes were made to the resolution “On perpetuating the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”

The document is published on the official Internet portal of legal information.

The project was prepared in pursuance of a list of Putin’s instructions following a meeting of the Presidential Council on Culture and the Arts. The head of the State Duma committee on culture Elena Yampolskaya, the first vice-speaker of the lower house Alexander Zhukov, as well as senator Alexei Pushkov submitted an initiative for consideration by deputies.

The explanatory note to the document states that recently in the media, including Russian, regularly unproven generalizing derogatory statements are published and broadcast, where the goals, decisions and actions of the Soviet leadership, command and military personnel are identified with the crimes of Nazism and Wehrmacht soldiers.

“We consider it categorically unacceptable to mix and (or) identify the actions of the defenders of the Motherland, those who gave their lives in the struggle for its freedom and independence, the actions of the liberation soldiers, with the actions of the occupying soldiers aimed at destroying the peoples, persons found guilty of committing crimes in accordance with the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the trial and punishment of the main war criminals of the European Axis countries (Nuremberg Tribunal), “the authors of the project noted earlier.

In their opinion, this law will not allow earning political capital by belittling the feat of the Soviet people. At the same time, the opportunity for scientific discussions and scientific research on the topic remains.

Sanctions for violation of this law have not yet been established.

Germany attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941. The confrontation lasted 1418 days and ended with the defeat of the countries of the fascist bloc. Its victims were about 26.6 million Soviet citizens, which is 40 percent of all human losses in World War II.