The Russian Ambassador spoke about Germany's payments to the besiegers of Leningrad

The issue of compensation to the non-Jewish Leningrad besiegers is related to the restoration of historical justice. On January 30, Sergey Nechaev, the Russian Ambassador to Germany, told Izvestia.

"The issue of paying individual monetary compensation to the besiegers of Leningrad is not directly related to the fact that the blockade was recognized as an act of genocide. We are talking about restoring historical justice, since Germany has been making appropriate compensation payments to Jewish besiegers for many years, while representatives of other nationalities have been denied them," he said.

At the same time, it is quite obvious that the suffering of the inhabitants of besieged Leningrad from hunger, cold, disease and bombing did not depend on their nationality, the diplomat emphasizes.

"The Russian side is invited to be content with the "humanitarian gesture" of Germany, which is more than a modest financial contribution to the modernization of the hospital for war veterans in St. Petersburg and the creation of a meeting center to educate the younger generation about the horrors of the blockade. However, even its implementation has not yet been completed. We consider this approach to be unfair," stressed the Russian Ambassador to Germany.

Russia continues to persistently, at all levels, raise with the German side the issue of recognizing the siege of Leningrad and other crimes against humanity committed by the Third Reich and its accomplices during World War II as genocide of the peoples of the USSR, the ambassador added.

"We are actively working in the public sphere: we are thematizing the issue through numerous interviews, speeches, memorial events, contacts with German politicians and members of the public," he said.

The Russian diplomat stressed that the position of official Berlin has not changed yet.

"This testifies to the actual refusal of the German authorities to give the terrible, indisputable and proven crimes of Nazism against the peaceful civilian population of the USSR during the "war of annihilation" declared by the Reich the definition they deserve. This also seems to indicate that the issue of Germany's recognition of its enduring historical responsibility to the peoples of the USSR has not been fully worked out," Nechaev said.

The story of the Day of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade: how the townspeople survived the blockade and learned about the lifting of the siege

In mid-January 1944, Soviet troops launched an offensive operation that ended on January 27.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on January 27 that Germany's refusal to extend payments to all besiegers of Leningrad without discrimination was shocking. The diplomat noted that the German side makes payments only to the besiegers of the same nationality, the Jewish besiegers.
Prior to that, the Russian Embassy in Germany, on the occasion of the Day of the Complete Liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade, stated that Berlin should officially recognize the siege of Leningrad and other crimes of the Nazi regime as genocide of the peoples of the USSR. The diplomatic mission also once again called on the German authorities to extend individual compensation payments to all besiegers, regardless of their nationality.

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