Russia stands against any forms of genocide and calls on the world community to counteract them, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wrote in his welcome speech addressed to the attendees of the commemoration evening “World without Genocide,” the official Kremlin website reports.

“Dear friends,

April 24, 1915 is a mournful date related to one of the most horrible and dramatic events in human history – the Armenian Genocide.

A decade later we bend our heads before the memory of all the victims of the tragedy, which our country has always perceived as its own pain and misfortune.

Russia’s stand was and continues to be objective and consistent: there can be no justification to the mass annihilation on the ground of ethnicity. The international community is urged to do its best in order to prevent the repetition of such atrocities anywhere and anytime. The new generations of Armenians and other nations of the region must live in peace and chime, without knowing the horrors, which are sparked by religious animosity, aggressive nationalism and xenophobia. I wish the brotherly Armenia and all the Armenians living in Russia, peace and prosperity.    

May the memory of the victims live forever,” the statement reads.