Russia slams planned Prague monument to collaborationist ‘Vlasov Army’

The Russian Embassy in Prague has criticised plans to erect a monument in the capital’s Řeporyje district to the so-called Vlasov Army, whose leader was hanged by the Soviets for collaborating with the Germans during World War II.

The Russian Embassy said in a press release building such a monument would constitute a violation of the Czech commitments to the 1968 Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, defined at the Nuremberg trials.

At the start of the war, General Andrei Vlasov commanded the Red Army on the Smolensk front. After being captured, he embraced the German cause and went on to lead a collaborationist force comprised mainly of former Soviet prisoners of war.

By February 1945, his “army” – which had only one fully formed division – fought briefly on the Oder Front before switching sides and helping the Czechs liberate Prague from Nazi occupation in early May 1945.

Author: Brian Kenety