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Sixty years have now passed but every year on May 9 we mourn the dead and remember the war, President Vladimir Putin said in his address at the Military parade. This war places great responsibilities on us and makes us realise more acutely just how close the world came at that time to plunging into an irreversible abyss, and just what monstrous consequences violence, racial prejudice, genocide and outrage against people could have had.

History teaches us that states and peoples must do everything possible not to close their eyes to the emergence of new, lethal doctrines and anything that can become fertile soil for new threats.

The lessons of the war send us a warning that indifference, temporising and being an accomplice to violence inevitably lead to terrible tragedies for the entire world. This is why today, faced with the real threat of terrorism, we must remain faithful to the memory of our fathers and must defend a world order based on security and justice and on a new culture of relations between nations that will not allow a repeat of any war, either “hot” or “cold”, Mr Putin said.