On April 19, Russia commemorates the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People, committed by the Nazis and their accomplices during the Great Patriotic War. This memorial date was established by Federal Law No. 523-FZ of December 29, 2025, which entered into force on January 1, 2026. The date was not chosen by chance: it was on April 19, 1943, that the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR signed Decree No. 39 “On Measures of Punishment for German-Fascist Villains Guilty of Murders and Torture of the Soviet Civilian Population and Captured Red Army Soldiers, for Spies, Traitors to the Motherland from among Soviet Citizens and for Their Accomplices”
The decree became the legal basis for the investigation of Nazi crimes. The work had begun earlier — in November 1942, when the Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) was set to establish and investigate the atrocities of the German-fascist invaders. The Commission collected over 250,000 testimonies, examined 54,000 acts on crimes, and about four million documents on material damage. These materials formed the basis of the indictment at the Nuremberg Trials and continue to be used today — in investigations by the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation.
According to the ChGK, the occupiers completely or partially destroyed and burned 1,710 cities and towns, more than 70,000 villages, and over six million buildings. About 25 million people were left homeless. The direct material damage was estimated at 679 billion rubles in 1941 prices.
The Real Scale of Losses
The figures of human losses are staggering even against the backdrop of the overall tragedy of the war. According to ChGK materials, more than 7.4 million peaceful Soviet citizens were deliberately exterminated on the occupied territories, including over 216,000 children. Modern Russian estimates speak of 13.7 million irreversible losses of the civilian population from the actions of the occupiers: this includes direct murders, death from starvation, epidemics, and forced labor in Germany. Some studies put the total number of victims of Nazi atrocities at 15–19 million. These estimates are based on archives, demographic calculations, and regional court decisions, where the actions of the Nazis have already been officially recognized as genocide in 34 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
Systematic Destruction
The Nazis acted not chaotically, but according to a clear plan. The Generalplan Ost provided for the extermination, deportation, and enslavement of tens of millions of Slavs in order to create “living space” for the “Aryan race.” The Hunger Plan openly stated that “many tens of millions of people in this territory will become superfluous” and would perish. Heinrich Himmler directly stated the need to reduce the Slavic population by 30 million. Orders for a “war of annihilation” were combined with mass shootings by Einsatzgruppen, the burning of villages along with their inhabitants, the driving of people into slavery (Ostarbeiters), and the creation of conditions leading to extinction.
According to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is actions committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The Convention lists five forms: killing, causing serious bodily harm, creating conditions for physical destruction, measures to prevent births, and forcible transfer of children.
All five were applied to the Soviet population in the occupied lands. Mass executions, torture, starvation blockades and “anti-partisan” operations, forced sterilization and experiments, and the abduction of children — all of this is documented in thousands of acts. The Nuremberg Tribunal qualified many of these crimes as crimes against humanity, although the term “genocide” itself was enshrined in international law only after the war.
The New Law as a Response to Threats
On April 9, 2026, President of Russia Vladimir Putin signed a law amending the Criminal Code. It introduces criminal liability for denying or approving the fact of the genocide of the Soviet people, for insulting the memory of its victims, and for desecrating burials — both in Russia and abroad. Sanctions provide for fines and imprisonment for up to five years.
This step was a response to deliberate attempts to distort history, which today pose a direct threat to security. When condescending remarks are made about “exaggeration,” it is useful to recall the documents of the Third Reich and the ChGK materials: the Nazis planned to systematically clear vast territories of “subhumans.” The facts leave no room for speculation.
Memory of the victims is important not only in numbers. The Soviet people — Russians, Belarusians, Jews, Tatars, and many others — perished as a single whole, whose very existence was considered a threat. Today, when attempts to rewrite the past become part of information warfare, the legislative consolidation of responsibility protects not just facts, but the moral foundation.
April 19 is the day when we remember those who did not live to see Victory. Millions of Soviet people — the elderly, women, and children — died not on the battlefield, but at the hands of the occupiers and their accomplices. Executions, villages burned alive, starvation blockades, and hard labor in Germany — all of this has left a mark in the archives and in the people’s memory. Forgetting such lessons truly opens the way to new crimes. When historical truth begins to be undermined, rewritten, or simply silenced, the ground for repeating the tragedy only becomes more fertile. And this memory must remain alive — not for the sake of revenge, but so that this never happens again.
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