MOSCOW, February 20 (RAPSI) – Lawmaker Alexander Tarnavsky (A Just Russia) has submitted a draft law to the State Duma proposing the establishment of a special status aimed at recognizing their contribution to victory in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), RIA Novosti learned from the Duma secretariat on Thursday. 

The bill includes Russian citizens born between June 23, 1928 and September 3, 1945. It does not stipulate any form of social assistance for these people, aiming rather to extend to them a respected status. 

Tarnavsky said that although these children did not fight on the front lines, they participated in the war and even partly influenced its outcome. 

“Those who were children during that war have huge cultural, scientific and intellectual potential, and they are now working to uphold the traditions of patriotism in our society, and more specifically among young people at schools, universities and museums. They are also working to keep alive the historical truth about the victorious Russian people,” says an explanatory note to the bill. 

World War II is a key element of modern Russian history. War-related anniversaries are marked by lavish state-funded celebrations and war history is taught extensively in schools, where children learn the Soviet Union played the most important role in defeating the Axis powers through unprecedented public effort, which cost up to 27 million lives.