Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
We have the same problems everywhere else as well. Life is taking the Greatest Generation.
[ColonelCassad] On November 16, in Sukhumi, at the age of 102, the only surviving woman who took part in the Battle of Stalingrad died - Valentina Shulgina lived to see the 75th anniversary of the turning point battle.
The last veterans are leaving. By the 30s of the 21st century, there will no longer be living witnesses of the Great Patriotic War. And then we will only have documents, chronicles, recorded memories and a huge cultural layer associated with that war. In the 90s and later, they tried to destroy this memory and take it away from us. As it was correctly noted, “The Great Patriotic War for a long time remained a lonely obelisk in the desert of unconsciousness,” being the main bond in our country, far ahead of abstract patriotism, religion or anything else. Every May 9, every “Immortal Regiment” (taken away from the liberals) was living evidence of this.
The more valuable is the memory of that war and the more important is it to achieve success in the current war, so as not to disgrace our ancestors who defeated Nazism then. Our task is to conform so that we don’t feel ashamed in front of them. And this is also a war for memory, since we see that our enemy, the main enemy who is hiding behind the Ukrainian or Baltic Nazis, is waging a consistent war against the memory of the Great Patriotic War, rewriting history, destroying monuments and desecrating graves. This is another front in the ongoing war, which goes beyond the war in Ukraine. And also in memory of our heroes of the Great Patriotic War, we must win it.
Peace be upon you.
Peace be upon them all, Borya.