More than 2,500
troops, security forces and also nearly 80 pieces of special equipment are
taking part in the event.
ST.PETERSBURG,
January 27. /TASS/. A military parade marking the 75th anniversary since
lifting of the Nazi-led siege of Leningrad is held on St. Petersburg’s Palace
Square, a TASS correspondent reported on Sunday.
More than 2,500
troops, security forces and also nearly 80 pieces of special equipment are
taking part in the event.
The parade began with
a minute of silence in memory of citizens and troops, who died during the
siege. Commander of the Western Military District’s forces, the Hero of Russia
Col. Gen. Alexander Zhuravlev said: "We bow to the holy memory of those,
who did not return from the war and died of wounds and diseases. The Russian
Army will always keep memory about the exploits of our fathers and
grandfathers."
The cadets of
military academies, dressed in the uniform of the 1940s, started the parade
carrying weapons from the time of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). The
participants held the banners of the fronts and units that took part in the war
battles, the Russian flag, the Victory Banner, the Russian Armed Forces’ Banner
and St. Petersburg’s flag.
Despite bitter frost,
many St. Petersburg citizens gathered on Palace Square to watch the parade and
show respect to the war veterans. Russia’s Federation Council (upper house)
Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, Acting St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov
and Russian Navy Commander Vladimir Korolev are attending the parade.
The parade features
legendary Soviet T-34 tank, artillery systems and Tornado multiple launch
rocket systems, BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, Tigr, UAZ, Taifun armored
vehicles, T-72B3 tanks, BTR-82A armored fighting vehicles, S-400 air defense
missile systems and Iskander-M missile systems.
The siege of
Leningrad (currently St. Petersburg) started on September 8, 1941 and lasted
872 days. It was broken on January 18, 1943, in the course of the Iskra
strategic military operation during the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic War
against Nazi Germany and was completely lifted on January 27, 1944. Leningrad
is the only large city in the world’s history that withstood almost 900-day
encirclement.
No more than 800,000
residents were remaining in the city by the end of the siege out of the 3
million people that had lived in Leningrad and its suburbs. According to
various estimates, from 641,000 to 1 million Leningraders died as a result of
hunger, bombings and artillery shelling. Almost 34,000 people were wounded, 716,000
residents were left without shelter and 1.7 million were evacuated across the
Road of Life and by air in 1941-1942.
Source: ITAR-TASS
27-01-2019
