The US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft supported the 'Immortal Regiment' march as the embodiment of the heroic deed committed by the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War.
"Seeing Russians march each year by the tens of thousands, watched over by so many departed heroes, is a stark reminder of World War Two’s human cost—a cost borne most heavily by the peoples of the Soviet Union," he wrote in his blog on LiveJournal.
The US Ambassador said that every year there are fewer of the veterans left, which is why such commemorations are so important. "We must also take care to remember what it was for. They fought to protect their homes and families, certainly – but they also fought for something greater than themselves. They fought for the idea of a world that was free and at peace – a world whose future would be decided not at gunpoint, but at the ballot box; not by dictators and their armies of conquest, but by the people themselves, empowered to determine their own destiny," Tefft pointed out.
