German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier laid a wreath in Berlin on Tuesday to commemorate the victims of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, code-named Operation Barbarossa, which began exactly 80 years ago on June 22, 1941. 

Steinmeier laid the wreath at the Soviet War Memorial in Schönholzer Heide in the Berlin district of Pankow. It is estimated that the German war against the Soviet Union cost roughly 27 million lives, of which 14 million were civilians.

During an event Friday, Steinmeier said: "Nobody during this war mourned more victims than the people of the former Soviet Union. And yet these millions are not as deeply etched in our collective memory as their suffering, and our responsibility, demand."

He added that the German war against the Soviets was carried out with "murderous barbarity."

More than 13,000 Red Army officers and soldiers who died in the battle for Berlin in 1945 are buried at the Schönholzer Heide memorial, which is one of three large Soviet memorials in the German capital, along with those in Treptow and Tiergarten.

The Schönholzer Heide also commemorates the victims among Soviet prisoners of war.

Putin: Red Army 'saved the world from enslavement'

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote a guest column in German newspaper Die Zeit. 

"We are proud of the courage and steadfastness of the heroes of the Red Army," he wrote. "And the workers at home, who not only defended the dignity of their Motherland, but also saved Europe and the whole world from enslavement."

He continued: "Despite recent attempts to rewrite the chapters of the past, the truth is that the Soviet soldier set foot on German soil not to take revenge on the Germans, but to fulfill his noble and great liberation mission."

Putin says Nord Stream a 'historic reconciliation'

Putin was also keen to extol the virtues of postwar relations with Germany, including recognition of the modern-day Nord Stream project, a gas pipeline that extends from Russia to northern Germany, which has met resistance from the US.

"I would like to point out in particular that the historic reconciliation between our people and the Germans in the East and West of the now united Germany played a colossal role in shaping such a Europe," Putin wrote in the editorial. 

"It should also be recalled that it was German entrepreneurs who became pioneers of cooperation with our country in the postwar years," he added.

"In 1970, a 'deal of the century' was concluded between the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany with the agreement on long-term gas supplies to Europe," Putin wrote. "This laid the foundation for constructive interdependence and subsequently made possible many great projects, such as Nord Stream."

Relations with Russia 'in crisis'

Not everyone was quite so keen to talk up Russia's relations with the West.

CDU foreign affairs expert Norbert Röttgen described relations with the Kremlin as "in crisis."

The chairman of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee said Germany must always "be aware" of the "historical guilt" of World War II. "But we still have to be realistic today."

Röttgen accused Russia of denying its Western neighbors "the free right of self-determination." This, he said, was the "core of the problem" with Moscow.

Russia does not have the right to tell Ukraine or other states not to become democracies. Poland and the Baltic states had also "regained their freedom," he said. 
 

jsi/wmr (dpa, KNA, AFP)