Recognition of Armenian Genocide by Russia

Putin Reaffirms Russian Recognition Of Armenian Genocide

23.04.2015

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the 1915 Armenian massacres in Ottoman Turkey as genocide ahead of his participation in Friday’s official ceremonies in Yerevan to mark the 100th anniversary of the tragedy.

“April 24, 1915 is a sad date connected with one of the most appalling and dramatic events in the history of humankind: the genocide of the Armenian people,” Putin said Wednesday in a written message to participants of an event in Moscow dedicated to the genocide centennial.

“One century on, we bow our heads in memory of all victims of this tragedy which our country has always perceived as its own pain and calamity,” he said.

“The position of Russia has been and remains objective and consistent: there can be no justifications for an ethnically motivated mass extermination. The international community is obliged to do everything to ensure that such atrocities are never repeated anywhere.”

“New generations of Armenians and other peoples of the region must live in peace and accord without knowing the horrors that result from provocation of religious enmity, aggressive nationalism and xenophobia,” added the message posted on the Kremlin’s website.

Putin is one of the four foreign heads of state -- along with the presidents of France, Serbia and Cyprus -- who have accepted official Armenian invitations to take part in the April 24 remembrance ceremonies in Yerevan. Russia and France are among two dozen countries that have officially recognized the World War One-era slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians as genocide.

In what may have been an attempt to prevent Putin’s April 24 visit to Armenia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned his Russian counterpart and discussed the genocide issue with him on March 17. Erdogan told Putin that the issue should be tackled from a “fair perspective.”

The Moscow event saluted by Putin was organized by the pro-Kremlin Union of Armenians of Russia (SAR) with what the latter described as the “support” of the Russian presidential administration and other government bodies.

Resolution by the State Duma of Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation

April 14, 1995

Based on irrefutable historic facts which attest to the extermination of Armenians on the territory of Western Armenia from 1915 to 1922 and, in accordance with the following Conventions adopted by the United Nations:

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, December 9, 1948;

Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, November 26, 1968;

Aspiring to restore the humanitarian traditions of the Russian State and,

Emphasizing that through the initiative of Russia, the Great European Powers already in 1915 characterized the actions of the Turkish Empire against the Armenian people as a "Crime Against Humanity" and,

Noting that the physical extermination of the fraternal Armenian people in its historic homeland aimed at destroying Russia;

The State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation:

Condemns the perpetrators of the extermination of Armenians from 1915 to 1922;

Expresses its deep sympathy to the Armenian people and recognizes April 24 as a day of remembrance for the victims of the Genocide.