Solemn assembly ahead of Fatherland Defenders Day

Fatherland Defenders Day is a holiday of courage and patriotism that unites people of different generations. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement during a solemn assembly held on 22 February ahead of Fatherland Defenders Day.

The head of state noted that Fatherland Defenders Day is a holiday of courage and patriotism that unites people of different generations: professional military and everyone who understands the value of peace. “It is a holiday for everyone, who is ready to defend state sovereignty and independence at any time. This is a behest of the heroic generation of winners of the Great Patriotic War,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.

The President reminded that traditions of military duty and devoted service to one’s country were established in a difficult period of time for the young Soviet state – the time of the civil war and counteraction of foreign intervention. The first few victories tempered the spirit of the Red Army soldiers and became a reference point of the heroic history of Belarus’ Armed Forces, he said.

“A liberating march of the Red Army, which re-united Belarus in its ethnical borders, was a glorious page in this history. And in 1941 officers and soldiers of the Belarusian Military District had to stand against the unbelievably atrocious and inhumane fascist aggression,” the Belarusian leader said.