May 10, 2010 (LPAC)—The leaders and population of Russia, Ukraine, and the other countries formerly in the Soviet Union yesterday marked the 65th anniversary of victory over Nazi fascism in the Great Patriotic War — World War II. In Russia, it was a huge patriotic mobilization, with parades from Kaliningrad in the West to Vladivostok on the Pacific scheduled to coincide in time, and the national news. Surviving veterans, now all in their late eighties, received free rail passes to come to Moscow, where the festive military parade also included a NATO grouping for the first time ever. In Volgograd (Stalingrad), where the Nazi invasion began to be turned back, the parade was led by one of the famous Soviet T-34 tanks, brought out of its usual museum location.
From Red Square, President Dmitri Medvedev led a group of visiting heads of state on foot to the eternal flame by the Kremlin wall, which marks the tomb of an unknown soldier from the Great Patriotic War. At the wreath-laying, he was flanked by President Hu Jintao of China, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and President Shimon Peres of Israel, together with leaders of the former Soviet republics.
