A social media user commented on Facebook, that the 'Driver was very brave in a lot of ways'
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18 Oct 2025
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18 Oct 2025
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A scene from Naas Racecourse today
The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming, the Academy award winning comedy film about the Cold War between the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the US, came to mind today.
About 300 cars delivered at least 1,000 people, mainly Russians, to Naas Racecourse.
They came to remember the defeat of the Nazis (and not all Germans were Nazis).
The event attracted some negative comment on social media, some of it directed at the racecourse owners. And there was criticism of “Russian flags in Naas”.
Some of them, it seems, were getting their wars mixed up, conflating the war which started when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and the one which saw the old Soviet Union defeat Nazi Germany in 1945.
The event at the racecourse was more akin to a family outing than anything else. There were no political speeches and many people brought along their children for activities arranged specially for them.
There were a good few Russian Federation flags to be sure - but we’re very fond of flags and emblems on this island. There were also a few tricolours fluttering the breeze.
Some cars carried the legend “CCCP” - the USSR in Russian and “T-34”, a reference to a Soviet tank which was produced between WW2 and 1958.
Most of the attendees reside in Dublin.
One was Mikhail Baturov, a native of the Russian Federation, who’s been living here for 20 years.
“Soldiers from across the USSR, including Ukraine, fought against Nazi Germany in the war. This event remembers that and has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine,” he said.
He'd also pointed out that some Irish people were members of the British Army, which also fought on the same side as the USSR and the US.
And not all those present were Russians. Some claimed to be from Moldova, Lithuania and Latvia.
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