Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the current generation of Russians must be worthy of the memory of their fathers, who gave their lives for the victory, and take responsibility for the fate of the country.
Putin said that the day before he took part in an "Immortal Regiment" procession, in which people joined the procession with portraits of their loved ones who died in the Great Patriotic War. "When I learned that a procession had been organized on Red Square, I decided to take part in it," Tass quotes him as saying.
Putin said that his father went to the front as an ordinary soldier. "The courage, blood and bodies of simple Russian soldiers, ordinary Soviet soldiers, lined the road to victory," he said.
