The President of Russia: Kremlin.ru released an article by Vladimir Putin about the Second World War

Kremlin.ru published an article by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin "75th Anniversary of the Great Victory: Shared Responsibility to History and our Future" with an assessment of the events immediately preceding the Second World War.

The article is also available on the Presidential Library's portal in the "Memory of the Great Victory" collection and on the information resource, representing the first part of the complex of digitized archival documents, film and photo materials "Second World War in Archival Documents".

For the first time, Vladimir Putin said about his intention to write an article commemorating the Victory on December 19, 2019, during a large annual press conference. On December 20, during an informal meeting of the heads of CIS member states, which was held at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library of the Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation, he told about the recently discovered or declassified archival materials about the history of the Second World War and invited to visit the specially organized exhibition "1939. The beginning of World War II".

Some of the documents mentioned by the President of Russia are available on the Presidential Library's portal. The portal has launched a unique information resource, representing the first part of the complex of digitized archival documents, film and photo materials "Second World War in Archival Documents".

The project has been arranged in accordance with the List of Instructions for the implementation of the Address of the President of Russia to the Federal Assembly on January 15, 2020, by the Federal Archival Agency, the Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation and the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library.

The Federal Archival Agency, with the participation of the archival services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the Ministry of Defence of Russia, the Federal Security Service of Russia, the Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia), has implemented (based on domestic, captured and foreign archival collections) the digitization of documents spotlighting the prehistory of the Second World War, its course and results. The materials will be posted on the Presidential Library’s portal for several years.

The first part of the complex is dedicated to the prehistory of the Second World War and covers the period from January 1933 to August 31, 1939. It includes more than 1700 archival documents, photographs, newsreel fragments; almost half of them are published for the first time. The resource is provided according to the chronological principle, documents are grouped by year (from 1933 to 1939).