Moscow has condemned the EU for cautioning countries seeking membership against participating in WWII commemorations in Moscow on May 9.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova asserted on Tuesday that the EU’s attempts to discourage candidate countries from attending the 80th anniversary of the World War II victory in Moscow are akin to a resurgence of Nazism.
On Monday, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, cautioned leaders of EU members and aspiring members against attending the May 9 event in the Russian capital. The Telegraph later reported that candidate states, such as Serbia, could be excluded from joining the EU if their leaders choose to participate in the Victory Day celebrations.
“If this is true, then Euro-Nazism is being reborn before our eyes,” Zakharova stated on Telegram, referencing the article.
“This is how the fascists 80 years ago forced those they considered ‘second-class people’ to renounce their homeland, ethnicity, and faith,” the spokeswoman elaborated.
The Telegraph reported that EU officials warned Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who has suggested he will attend the May 9 parade, that the visit would jeopardize his country’s EU membership bid.
Vucic’s attendance at the event would “come at a cost,” according to Estonia’s Foreign Ministry secretary-general, Jonatan Vseviov, the newspaper reported. “The consequence is them not joining the European Union.”
“For us this will be an important litmus test. Basically what we look at is whether or not they are on our side or playing on the other team,” he reportedly stated.
Speaking at a press conference in Luxembourg on Monday, Kallas warned that “any participation in the May 9th parades – or celebrations – in Moscow will not [be] taken lightly on the European side.”
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, the only EU member state leader who has indicated his intention to attend, criticized her statement as “disrespectful” and potentially a form of blackmail.
“Is Ms. Kallas’s warning a form of blackmail or a signal that I will be punished upon my return from Moscow? I don’t know. But I do know that the year is 2025, not 1939,” he posted on X.
Fico emphasized that his attendance is a matter of national sovereignty. “I will go to Moscow to pay tribute to the thousands of Red Army soldiers who died liberating Slovakia, as well as to the millions of other victims of Nazi terror,” he added.
Russia’s annual Victory Day celebration commemorates the USSR’s 1945 victory over Nazi Germany and the estimated 26.6 million Soviet lives lost in the conflict.
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