Raul Castro has acknowledged the meaning of the date on other occasions. “There are no words to express the gigantic heroism and sacrifice of all the peoples that made up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), especially the Russian people’s contribution,” he said in 2009.

Several Cuban leaders have expressed satisfaction with the 78th anniversary of the feat against the Nazi regime. Cuba’s National People’s Power Assembly (Parliament) Esteban Lazo congratulated the Russian people for the commemoration.

The Cuban parliamentary leader recalled that the Russians, together with a group of countries that made up the extinct USSR, gave 27 million lives to annihilate fascism and prevent it from taking over the world.

“Humanity must be eternally grateful for this and pay eternal tribute to the heroes and martyrs of that fierce war,” Lazo wrote on the Cuban Parliament’s Twitter account.

He stressed that during the hard years of World War II, Russian troops and their Eastern European allies were a determining and decisive force to end the oppressive Nazi regime.

On commemorating another anniversary of Victory Day today, Lazo, who is also the president of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba, urged neither to forget nor to misrepresent what happened.

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