EU will never forgive the victory over fascism. Chief diplomat Kaja Kallas warns against attending “Victory Day” in Moscow.

Kaja Kallas in November 2024 -- European Parliament, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Arnold Schölzel, Unsere Zeit, 25 April 2025. Translated by Helmut-Harry Loewen

On April 14, a meeting of European Union foreign ministers convened in Luxembourg with representatives of the six so-called Western Balkan states and Kiev's Foreign Minister Andrei Sybiha. The latter invited his EU colleagues to travel to Kiev on May 9 instead of Moscow. Ukrainian historian Marta Havryshko, who works in the USA, pointed out in the Berliner Zeitung that the “Galician Division” of the SS, for example, was honoured with an exhibition in Kiev in 2023, which then toured Lithuania. Havryshko asked: “Will European heads of state and government visiting Kiev on 9 May ask President Volodymyr Zelensky why some Ukrainian soldiers are glorifying Waffen SS divisions?” The West is "tellingly silent about Nazi apologetics in Ukraine.”

In the press conference after the meeting, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas was at least as brazen and oblivious to history as Sybiha, warning European heads of state and government against celebrating in Moscow on May 9. Kallas threatened: “It was also very clearly discussed and expressed by various member states that participation in the May 9 parades or celebrations in Moscow will not be taken lightly by the European side, as Russia is indeed waging an all-out war in Europe.” When asked by a Ukrainian journalist whether she was tracking which EU states or candidate countries were planning to visit Moscow on May 9, Kallas replied: "We have made it clear that we do not want any candidate country to take part in the events in Moscow on May 9. So that was clear and unambiguous."

The threat was followed by the announcement of further military aid for Kiev. Kallas announced that the EU had secured “two thirds” of the funds required for the delivery of two million artillery shells to Ukraine. Five billion euros are required for this by year's end. These have apparently not yet been pledged, because the foreign affairs representative is not only facing Hungarian opposition in the EU. Kallas summed it up as follows: “A large majority of member states agree that we need to do more.” According to her, the EU is also working on its 17th “package” of sanctions.

Her official EU warning against participating in the victory celebrations in Moscow was met with some sharp opposition. The Russian president's press spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, reacted most calmly, telling Tass on Tuesday last week: "We take note of your very, very harsh statements. We do not consider them to be correct." Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on X: "If this is so, then Euro-Nazism is being revived before our eyes. This is how, eighty years ago, the fascists forced those they considered ‘second-class people’ to give up their homeland, their ethnicity and their faith."

In addition to China's head of state and party leader Xi Jinping and Brazil's President Lula da Silva, Serbia's President Aleksandar Vučić and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have also confirmed their attendance at the military parade. Both countries aspire to join the EU. In Yerevan, Pashinyan's participation was confirmed once again following the warning from Brussels. Parliamentary leader Alen Simonjan declared: “This is also our victory. 300,000 Armenians have died for victory.” Pashinyan's visit to Moscow was in no way connected to the EU.

Slovakian President Robert Fico had already announced his participation in November 2024. On April 15, he asked on X: "Is Ms. Kallas' warning a form of blackmail or a signal that I will be punished after my return from Moscow? I do not know. But what I do know is that the year is 2025 and not 1939." The philosopher and Slovakian MEP Ľuboš Blaha wrote on Telegram on April 17 that he was “ready to continue committing serious ideological crimes” on May 9 in Moscow together with Fico. He added: "The Brussels extremists under the leadership of Kallas are already sputtering. The West has obviously not yet come to terms with the fact that it lost the war against the Red Army in 1945."

Original article: Arnold Schölzel, “EU verzeiht nicht den Sieg uber Faschismus,” Unsere Zeit, 25. April 2025.