German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday criticised Russia’s “historical lies” over the Ukraine war, as he marked the Nazi defeat that ended World War II in Europe 80 years ago.Steinmeier’s speech to parliament expressed gratitude to the Allied soldiers and resistance movements who, “with all their strength and at great sacrifice”, defeated Nazi Germany.He also praised the Soviet Red Army, in which Russian and Ukrainian troops fought side-by-side for their role in the Nazis’ defeat, noting it had liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.“We do not forget this,” Steinmeier told the Bundestag, during a sombre commemoration on the May 8 anniversary of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allies. “But precisely because of this, we firmly oppose the Kremlin’s historical lies today,” he added.Russia has cast its three-year offensive against Ukraine as a fight against “neo-Nazis” and has channelled its own wartime legacy to try to justify the war.But Steinmeier went on: “The war against Ukraine is not a continuation of the fight against fascism. “Putin’s war of aggression, his campaign against a free, democratic country, has nothing in common with the fight against Nazi tyranny in World War II.”Steinmeier’s speech received lengthy applause from MPs, although many from the far-right AfD, now the biggest opposition party after coming second in February elections did not join in.Others in the West and Kyiv, including independent experts, have also rejected Moscow’s narratives.Germany has been a key backer of Kyiv in its fight against Moscow. Russia’s ambassador to Berlin was not invited to Thursday’s commemoration, which was being marked with a public holiday in the capital.

Extremist forces

Moscow is on Friday set to hold a large Victory Day parade to mark the anniversary of the Nazis’ defeat. During his 25 years in power, Putin has elevated May 9 to Russia’s most important public holiday, using it to champion his army as defenders against fascism.Steinmeier also said it was a “shock of unprecedented proportions” that the United States was “turning its back on” the international, rules-based order which Washington had helped to forge.Even such an old democracy “can quickly be endangered when the judiciary is disregarded, the separation of powers is undermined and academic freedom is attacked,” he said.Europe has been rattled by US President Donald Trump’s return to office, and is particularly fearful that his administration is no longer committed to helping protect the continent. Steinmeier expressed fears about “extremist forces” gaining strength in Germany, following the AfD’s recent electoral success.He did not mention the party by name but noted that such forces “mock the institutions of democracy and those who represent them”.Steinmeier’s speech recalled former president Richard von Weizsaecker’s watershed address in 1985 when he became the first to call on Germans to remember May 8 not as a day of defeat, but one of liberation from Nazi tyranny.Nevertheless, Thursday’s commemoration was not taking place in “calm certainty,” Steinmeier stressed. “Today we no longer need to ask, did May 8 liberate us?”, he said. “But we must ask, how can we remain free?”