Vietnam’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Le Luong Minh, delivered was speaking at a special session of the UN General Assembly in New York on May 6 to mark the 65th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

While celebrating this great victory, it is necessary for us to recall that since that victory and since the United Nations was founded in 1945, many people in the world have been continuing to suffer and are continuing to suffer from war, poverty and injustice and even never have a single day of living in peace, Minh stressed.

“As a nation who through the loss of millions of human lives, 2 million in 1945 alone, Vietnam had bravely struggled against fascism for world peace and risen up to win national independence and freedom after nearly a century of living under foreign domination.

Speaking at the meeting, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said "The war’s cost was beyond calculation, beyond comprehension, 40 million civilians dead, nearly half of those in the Soviet Union alone.”

"Those years saw extraordinary bravery, as well. World War II was one of the most epic struggles for freedom and liberation in history,” he said.