Press Release, 7.05.2025

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in World War II, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov brought flowers from Yabloko to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow.

“Millions of people – soldiers and sailors, workers, front-line doctors and nurses, residents of besieged Leningrad, home front workers, concentration camp prisoners, and partisans – fought and gave their lives not only for Victory. They fought so that war would never again take fathers and sons, so that mothers would not receive funeral notices, so that cities would not lie in ruins.

Today, when blood is being shed in the world again, our duty is not only to remember the past, but also to fight for human life as the highest value on Earth.

We bow our heads and endlessly honour the memory of those who died in the struggle for life, for our country, against the state misanthropic ideology of fascism.

We remember and will never forget our allies in the war against fascism, all the people of the world who were part of the anti-Hitler coalition. Ending the war and creating a new world order, the victors sought to unite humanity and prevent new wars in the future.

We are categorically against using the Victory to justify Bolshevism and Stalinism, which brought countless suffering to the victorious people.

We appeal to the Russians who remember and honour the Victory: do not give in to hatred, provocations aimed at dehumanisation, humiliation of human dignity of fellow citizens and citizens of other countries – the descendants of the creators of the Victory. Thank you, who bows their heads before the memory of the fallen and who strives for peace,” Rybakov said.

It should be noted that on 8 May, Yabloko will honour the memory of the victims of the war at the Piskarevskoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg, and on 9 May – at the Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery in Moscow, where more than 10,000 soldiers and commanders of the Red Army are buried. Yabloko will also lay flowers at the Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Moscow at the memorial to the French pilots from the Normandy-Niemen who heroically defended the skies of our country and died in battles on the Soviet-German front.