Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a decree late on Tuesday renaming the airport in Volgograd as Stalingrad, as the town was recognized when the Soviet military defeated the Nazi German forces within the largest battle of World War Two.
“In order to perpetuate the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, I hereby decree … to assign the historical name ‘Stalingrad’ to Volgograd International Airport,” the decree revealed on the Kremlin’s web site stated.
World War Two, during which round 22-25 million Soviet residents are estimated to have died, is thought in Russia as The Great Patriotic War. For many Russians, Stalingrad conjures recollections each of the struggle’s sacrifice and the murderous rule of dictator Josef Stalin.
Putin has usually in contrast his invasion of Ukraine to the struggle towards Nazis, presenting the struggle to Russians as a “special military operation” to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine.
Ukraine – which was a part of the Soviet Union and itself suffered devastation by the hands of Adolf Hitler’s forces – rejects these parallels as spurious pretexts for a struggle of imperial conquest.
In a fiery 2023 speech in Volgograd marking the eightieth anniversary of the battle of Stalingrad, Putin lambasted Germany for serving to to arm Ukraine and reiterated that he was prepared to attract on Russia’s whole arsenal, which incorporates nuclear weapons.
Stalingrad, which was renamed Volgograd in 1961, was the bloodiest battle of the struggle, when the Soviet Red Army, at a value of over 1 million casualties, broke the again of German invasion forces in 1942-43.
Source: www.anews.com.tr