By Li Hongmei
Today Russia marks the 67th Victory Day since the surrender of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Almost 27 million Soviet people died in that war, which came to be known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.
A Victory Day military parade took place in Red Square on Wednesday to commemorate 67 years since victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. The parade was reviewed by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and addressed by President Vladimir Putin. A total of 1,500 WWII veterans were invited to attend the parade.
More than 14,000 soldiers and officers of the Russian Armed Forces, as well as security service officers and military university students took part in a V-Day military parade in Moscow earlier today.
Below is the on-spot reporting from both Voice of Russia and People's Daily:
The first to march was the company of drummers of the Defence University of the Russian Defense Ministry. It was followed by groups of standard-bearers with the State Flag of the Russian Federation, the Banner of Victory and the Banner of the Armed Forces, as well as replicas of the standards of the Great Patriotic War fronts and far-famed formations.
These were followed by marching units of the Russian Armed Forces, security agencies, and modern-day military hardware, such as armored personnel carriers, tanks, self-propelled artillery guns and missile systems, 100 units all told.
Five helicopters passed over Red Square bearing the flags of the Russian Federation, the Defence Ministry, the Ground Forces, the Air Force and the Russian Navy.
"Russia is implementing a policy of strengthening security in the world," Putin said at the parade that was his first major speech since his return to the Kremlin.
"We have a great moral right to persist in our stance, in so much as it was our country that took upon itself the main thrust of Nazism and met the enemy with heroic resistance, determining the course of the war."
Humanity paid an exorbitant price for the social isolation and ideological confrontation that made it impossible to ward off the Second World War, Putin said.
The first Victory Parade was held on Red Square on June 24, 1945 on the order of then-Supreme Commander-in-Chief Joseph Stalin.
