“You have all heard the absurd, even shameful statements some of our opponents have been resorting to, driven by their ambition to contain Russia and, in the final account, to distort the past. We must confront all this mudslide of lies, falsifications and distortions of historical facts,” Putin said, at a meeting with regional authorities.
The president urged the attending governors to use professional historians, experts, public leaders and youth activists working together to rebut the lies and falsities being leveled against Russia and its past.
The same month, Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna, speaking on national radio, claimed that the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated by Ukrainians since the operation was carried out by the a military detachment called First Ukrainian Front.
Following these recent statements, the Russian President said that all attempts to revise Russia's contribution to the victory in the fight against Nazism during World War II should be viewed as a glorification of Nazi crimes.