It has been several years since Russian-Americans have been able to organize a demonstration honoring those Soviet soldiers killed during World War II, but this year they applied and received permission to march from Lafayette Square to the World War II Memorial. Now with U.S. President Donald Trump seeking rapprochement with Russia and an end to the Ukraine proxy war against Moscow, the organizers of the observance showed great courage in reassembling to commemorate the huge sacrifices of the Russian military forces and civilian population, along with U.S. and other Allied forces, in bringing the nightmare of Nazi domination of Europe to an end. The Schiller Institute members from Leesburg, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland participated.
As event organizers were gathering, some 50 Ukrainian demonstrators came up with flags and posters to harass them with slogans and catcalls with their megaphones. The Russian group generally ignored them, and the Park Police ordered them to back off.
There were between 100 and 200 people in the demonstration as it headed from Lafayette Park to the World War II Memorial, as police stopped traffic for the march to proceed down 17th Street past the Old Executive Office Building, with a small band leading the parade brandishing flags and with participants bearing photographs of their loved ones who had perished in the war. The band played and demonstrators sang Kalinka and other popular Russian patriotic tunes. The contingent of LaRouche Organization activists wore body signs with photos of family members who had fought in World War II. They distributed more than 100 copies of the LaRouche Organization President Diane Sare’s leaflet, “VE Day 2025: Celebration and Rededication” and gave interviews to media from Russia and Denmark.
At the World War II Memorial, the marchers lined up on the small incline in front of the pool and continued their singing. The Ukrainians quickly popped up and lined themselves a little farther up on the incline behind the demonstration continuing their catcalls and slogans. The ceremony nevertheless went on, as marchers ignored the cacophony coming from the Ukrainian malcontents.
The marchers also brought roses, which they placed along the north wall of the monument, which bears plaques dedicated to events in the Atlantic Theater of war, including U.S. and Soviet troops meeting each other at the Elbe River in Torgau, Germany. Marchers began by placing a few flowers by that plaque, but there were so many roses that they started to put them all along the entire wall with the other plaques, as well as laying some of them under the Atlantic arch at the Memorial. The participants were very pleased with the ability to hold this important event, 80 years after defeating Nazism in Europe, and many expressed thanks to The LaRouche Organization participants.
