President Vladimir Putin on Monday stressed that defending the motherland has always been sacred while speaking at the ceremony on Moscow's Red Square marking the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.

Moscow.- The president recalled the main battles that defined the Soviet Union's victory in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) and asserted that Russian troops in the Donbas region are currently fighting in the same way to prevent the proliferation of fascism in Ukraine.

Putin called for a minute's silence in tribute to all those who died in the war over Nazi Germany and the Russians who lost their lives in the military operation deployed by Moscow in Ukraine.

The head of State expressed the inevitability of the preventive strike against Kyiv's forces in the face of a situation that was a threat to this country and, especially, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

A total of 11,000 soldiers, students from military schools and cadets, 131 units of modern weapons and military equipment, as well as 77 aircraft and helicopters, participated in the ceremony at the emblematic Red Square.

In addition to Russia, most of the countries that were formerly Soviet republics, also protagonists and victims in the confrontation with fascism, commemorate Victory Day.

Nazi Germany’s act of complete and unconditional surrender was signed at 22:43 hours, Berlin time, on May 8, 1945, which due to the time difference, was already May 9 in the Soviet Union. (PL)