“As we celebrate the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, and the liberation of Europe that followed, let us also commemorate and honor the role that the former Soviet Union, now Russia, played in that liberation. It was the sacrifice of the Soviet people, with the loss of over 27 million lives and massive devastation to its own economy and infrastructure, that Europe was saved from fascism. This defeat of fascism and the resultant democracy that came about in Europe would not have been possible without the Russian sacrifice. On this anniversary, 80 years after the Normandy landings, and as Europe moves closer and closer to a confrontation with Russia, let us reflect on this salient reality. It is time for us to pull back from confrontation before it is too late. President Kennedy reminded us on June 10, 1963, during his commencement address at American University, “We all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s future, and we are all mortal.” Let us live up to this admonition and this challenge.

The 80th anniversary of D-Day falls on June 6 and of the start of Operation Bagration which crushed the Nazi Wehrmacht in the east on June 22. The Cold War has been over for almost a quarter of a century. And yet the looming threat of global thermonuclear war and universal destruction between the United States and its NATO allies with a relatively open, free market, non-ideological and definitely capitalist Russia is now greater than it ever was then, except for the fleeting few weeks of the Cuban MIssile Crisis in October 1962.

Dear Friends and Colleagues. This year, June 6 marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the opening of the Second Front, which helped accelerate the final defeat of Nazi Germany. The successful conduct of this operation was facilitated by the large-scale summer offensive of the Red Army, which forced the German command to throw its main reserves to the eastern front. Operation Overlord strengthened cooperation between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and created the necessary military, political, and strategic prerequisites for the liberation of the peoples of Europe and Asia and the victorious end of World War II.

April 29—U.S. and Soviet forces met during World War II, on April 25, 1945, at the Elbe River, which flows through central Germany. This meeting of the allied offensive coming from the West and the Soviet forces coming from the East was a clear indication that the war was coming to an end. Berlin was surrounded by the Soviet forces and would fall within a few days; the Germans would surrender on May 9. There was also a clear recognition by the U.S. and its Western allies that the war against Hitler was a success only because the Soviet Union, which had been invaded in 1941, had held out against the Nazi onslaught. This was done at the cost of more than 30 million casualties, far more than the combined total casualties of the other Western nations. Only China, suffering 20 million casualties in its lengthy war with Japan, had a loss in league with the Soviets.

The idea is beginning to circulate of use the upcoming celebration of June 6, which marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the landing of Allied troops in Normandy, to begin a regulatory process in Ukraine that would bring stability to Europe and around the world

As I write, we are about to celebrate Elbe Day, the 39th anniversary of the meeting of US Army and Soviet troops on the banks of the river Elbe in the heart of Germany on April 25, 1945. I fear none of us may live to celebrate the 40th.

Revival of ‘Spirit of the Elbe’ is the Roadmap to Peace

US and Russia have a long history of polar science cooperation.

Lack of a Coherent NATO Policy

Ray came to Washington from his native Bronx in the early Sixties as an Army infantry/intelligence officer and then served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. Ray’s duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’s Daily Brief, which he briefed one-on-one to President Ronald Reagan’s five most senior national security advisers from 1981 to 1985.