Russia has issued a formal demand that Germany officially acknowledge the siege of Leningrad during World War II, and other atrocities committed by the Third Reich in the USSR, as acts of genocide.

RT has seen a diplomatic note sent by the Russian Foreign Ministry to the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin in late February, in response to a statement released by Berlin on January 27, marking 80 years since the siege of Leningrad (present-day St Petersburg) was lifted.

Berlin stated that it was “committed to ensuring that the memory of the atrocities of German war crimes in the Second World War is maintained and expressly acknowledges its historical responsibility for the crimes committed in Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht.”

Russian diplomats, in response, pointed to the “contradictory nature of the German side’s approach to the issue of officially recognizing crimes against humanity committed by Germany in the past as acts of genocide,” the document reads.

Moscow noted that Berlin has already recognized its colonial-era crimes as genocide, but has yet to do the same with regards to the Leningrad blockade and other crimes against the people of the USSR.

”The Russian side insists on the official recognition by the German side of the atrocities of the Third Reich as acts of genocide,” the note says.

According to figures released by Russia’s Foreign Ministry last month, Nazi Germany's blockade of Leningrad – which began on September 8, 1941 and lasted 872 days – resulted in the deaths of over one million people, half of the city’s population. The invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler’s forces caused the deaths of over 13.6 million civilians.

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