Citizens and Citizenesses of the Soviet Union! Today, at four o’clock in the morning, without addressing any grievances to the Soviet Union, without declaration of war, German forces fell on our country, attacked our frontiers in many places and bombed our cities…an act of treachery unprecedented in the history of civilized nations…The Red Army and the whole nation will wage a victorious Patriotic War for our beloved country, for honour, for liberty…Our cause is just. The enemy will be beaten. Victory will be ours.
– Molotov, 22 June 1941 at the outset of Operation Barbarossa
