Dear Compatriots,

I congratulate you on Victory and Peace Day.

This holiday is celebrated worldwide with great enthusiasm, love and respect: it symbolizes the end of the Great Patriotic War and the beginning of a new era in mankind’s history.

What was the Great Patriotic War, if not an endless chain of exploits, valiant heroism, combined with appalling crimes that blind the human brain, irreversible loss of life and tragedies that distorted numerous human lives?

For the Armenian people, World War II was as much again a struggle between existence, justice, evil and good, waged only two decades after the Genocide. We suffered enormous losses, but we also saw brave heroes, brave soldiers and officers who fought on all fronts of the war not only for their own homeland, but also in a bid to preserve human civilization.

With a historic coincidence, on May 9, we celebrate another event of vital importance to us. The liberation of Shushi - the cradle of the Armenians of Artsakh - is one of the most brilliant chapters in our history that demonstrates our nation’s unwavering will and spirit to live in freedom, to struggle and to win.

Once again, I congratulate our dear veterans, our freedom-fighters on this triumphant feast.

I bow to the memory of our martyrs and sacred heroes.

May victories help us build a strong and powerful Fatherland dreamed by our grandfathers!