Itar-Tass 09 May, 2007

Azerbaijan veteran of World War II: The dismantlement of the monument to the Soviet Liberator Soldie

VE-Day celebrations in Baku traditionally centred around the monument to Azi Aslanov, two times hero of the Soviet Union.

Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev laid a wreath at the monument on Wednesday morning. Major-General Aslanov died shortly before the end of World War II, in January 1945, while fighting for the liberation of the Baltic countries.

He received his first title of Hero of the Soviet Union for courage during the Battle of Stalingrad and the second one 45 years after the war.

Over 600 people from Azerbaijan fought in the war, and half of them died in the battlefields. Only about 10,000 war veterans have lived up to date. One of them, Ismail Ibragimov, who fought in the North Caucasus, the Crimea, Ukraine, and the Baltic republics, said “the dismantlement of the monument to the Soviet Liberator Soldier in Tallinn is blasphemy. I can’t think of other words.”

“Had it been not for this victory, it is a big question, where we would be today. No matter what some say, ordinary people in the Baltic republics met Soviet soldiers warmly at that time and did not consider them occupants,” he said. Azerbaijan treats war veterans differently as evidenced by the unveiling of a renovated monument to Great Patriotic War soldiers in downtown Baku.