Russia will do its utmost to avoid a global confrontation but will not allow itself to be threatened, President Vladimir Putin said today in his speech on the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the victory over fascism.

«Our strategic forces are always ready for combat,» the leader warned from Moscow’s Red Square at the start of the Victory Day parade.

Today we see attempts to distort the truth about the Second World War because some are accustomed to building a colonial policy on hypocrisy and lies, the Russian leader said.

They tear down memorials to fighters against Nazism, put on the pedestal traitors and accomplices of the Nazis, erase the memory of heroism and nobility of the liberating soldiers, of the great sacrifice they made in the name of life, he said.

For Putin, revanchism, desecration of history, and the desire to justify today’s acolytes of the Nazis are part of the general policy of the Western elites to incite more and more regional conflicts, ethnic and interfaith discord, and to contain sovereign and independent centers.

«We reject pretensions to exceptionality on the part of any state or alliance, we know where such inordinate ambitions lead,» he said.

During his speech, Putin deemed it appropriate, however, to recall the role of the Soviet Union’s Western allies in the common struggle against Nazism.

In his opinion, Russia has never downplayed the importance of the second front and the help of the allies. «We will never forget our common struggle. We honor the courage of all the soldiers of the anti-Hitler coalition, members of the Resistance, underground fighters, and guerrillas,» he added.

The president paid tribute both to the veterans of the Great Patriotic War and to the participants of the special military operation in Ukraine.

All its participants, those who are on the front line, on the front, are our heroes. We admire your steadfastness, dedication, and self-sacrifice. All Russia is with you, our veterans believe in you and care about you, he assured.

Every year, Russia and most of the countries that were part of the Soviet Union celebrate on May 9 the triumph over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War covering the period from June 22, 1941, the beginning of the German invasion of the USSR, to the capitulation of the Nazi regime.

The unconditional surrender of Germany, which put an end to the Second World War on the European continent, was sealed on May 8, 1945, when in Moscow it was already May 9.