MOSCOW, July 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday harshly criticized a recent convention of Nazi veterans in Estonia as a “blasphemous attempt to honor Hitler’s hangmen.”
In a statement, Russia’s Foreign Ministry criticized the Estonian government for permitting the meeting, as well as the European Union for not issuing a “proper response” to the event.
About a hundred people, including veterans of the Waffen-SS, gathered in the Estonian village of Sinimae last week to commemorate a bloody 1944 battle in which Nazi regiments, including local Estonian conscripts, fought Red Army forces that were attempting to reoccupy the area.
All three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – provided troops for the army of Nazi Germany, and veterans regularly hold events commemorating their service. Their supporters say the veterans were not fascists but freedom fighters who opposed the Soviet Union, which annexed the three countries in 1940.
