At an April 21 discussion with media, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked about EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas’ threat, “about the fact that European officials are issuing threats to the European leaders who are planning to come to Moscow on May 9?” to join the celebration of the 80th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War that defeated Nazism in Europe, referencing to EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas
Putin replied: “To issue threats, one needs to have the proper tools to act on them. This is number one. Number two, you have to be ready to use these forces and means. Does any European official have any of that? I am not sure. If the potential of the countries standing behind them is limited to one million, or 1.3 million people, and they are calling to continue the war to the last Ukrainian, it begs questions as to whether they are truly thinking that, and whether they are in their right mind when they propose something like that.
“However, I think that those who are planning to come to Russia have much more courage than those who are hiding behind someone’s back trying to threaten other people, especially those who are going to mark the historical feats of the people who gave their lives in the fight against Nazism.”
Sixty-five to seventy percent of the deaths of Wehrmacht soldiers during World War II were inflicted by the Soviet Union on Nazi Germany’s Eastern Front.
On April 14, after an EU Foreign Ministers’ gathering, Kallas, the Russophobe former Estonian Prime Minister, threatened, “What was also discussed very clearly, and said by different member states, is that any participation in the 9th May parades or celebrations in Moscow will not be taken lightly on the European side.” Celebrate the defeat of fascism in 1945, and you are not fit for the EU.
The Russian Federation has been very clear that a major threat to its stability from the 2014 coup in Ukraine is the involvement of the allies of wartime Nazi leaders, such as Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, which Moscow intends to wipe out of Ukraine.
