Russian President Vladimir Putin will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Alexander Garden near the Kremlin wall on the 82nd anniversary of the beginning of World War II.
The memorial ceremony is traditionally held on the Day of Memory and Grief. Last year, along with the head of state, veterans of the Great Patriotic War, the armed forces and combat operations, as well as participants in the special military operation in Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to honor the memory of those killed in the battles against the Nazi invaders.
Then Putin also laid flowers at the obelisks of the Hero Cities: Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Odessa, Kerch, Novorossiysk, Brest Fortress, Tula, Murmansk, Smolensk; at the memorial sign in honor of the cities awarded the honorary title "City of Military Glory".
Putin has repeatedly stressed that present and future generations must sacredly protect the historical truth about the World War II and understand the devastating consequences of any connivance with nationalism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia. He noted that today the Russian soldiers are fighting against the direct followers of Nazism.
Day of Memory and Grief
On October 25, 2007, Putin signed amendments to the law On Days of Military Glory and Commemorative Dates of Russia. The list of memorable dates included a new one, June 22, the Day of Memory and Grief, the day the Great Patriotic War began.
The law on the annual all-Russian minute of silence on June 22, the Day of Memory and Grief, was signed by the head of state in the spring of 2020. It takes place in all regions at 12:15 Moscow time. This is the exact time when Vyacheslav Molotov, People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, released an address to Soviet citizens in which he announced the German attack on the Soviet Union.
At dawn on June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without a declaration of war. On the first day thousands of Red Army soldiers and civilians were killed, and 1.2 thousand planes, tanks and artillery pieces were destroyed.
The ashes of the unknown Soviet soldier were transferred from the mass grave in Moscow suburbs and solemnly reburied in Alexander Garden in 1966. The following year, a memorial was opened here, the key element of which was the Eternal Flame. A guard of honor at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - "position number 1" - was established in 1997.
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Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS