On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, members of the Board of the Russian Defence Ministry laid flowers and wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin wall in Alexander Garden. Veterans of the Armed Forces also took part in the ceremony.  

🕯 The participants of the ceremony honoured the memory of warriors, who fell during battles of the Great Patriotic War, by a minute of silence.

🔹 The ceremony ended with the marching of a company of the Guard of Honour.

More description:  Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and heads of foreign delegations laid flowers and wreaths to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Alexander Garden near the Kremlin's wall on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

🔹 The event was attended by senior military officials from Abkhazia, Algeria, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Egypt, India, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Laos, Libya, Myanmar, Mongolia, Niger, Nigeria, Thailand, Equatorial Guinea, South Ossetia, and South Africa. 

🕯  The participants of the ceremony honoured the memory of fallen warriors by a minute of silence. The ceremony ended with the marching of a company of the Guard of Honour and a band company.

⬆️ The ceremony of laying wreaths by state officials at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a well-established tradition. 

The ashes of the Unknown Soviet soldier were transferred from a mass grave in Moscow region and reburied in Alexander Garden during a solemn ceremony in 1966. The following year a memorial was opened here, the key element of which was the Eternal Flame. 

The guard of honour at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - ‘Post No. 1’ - was established in 1997. ⬇️

Adding: 

On 8 May 1945, Soviet troops captured the city of Dresden

On this day 80 years ago, the Soviet Informburo reported:

After two days of fighting, units of the 1st Ukrainian Front broke the enemy resistance and captured the city of Dresden - an important road junction and a powerful stronghold of the German defence in Saxony, a major industrial centre of Germany.

Also on 8 May, Soviet troops captured the towns of Mügeln, Lommatzsch, Meissen, Laisnig, Döbeln, Hartha, Waldheim, Rosswein, Nossen, Wilsdruff, Heinichen, Frankenberg, Freiberg, Garandt, Oderan, Saida and, having crossed the Czechoslovak border to the south of Dresden, captured the towns of Most, Duchcov, Teplice-Schanov on the territory of Czechoslovakia.  Simultaneously east of Dresden our troops, having broken the resistance of the enemy, captured the towns of Radeberg, Lobau, Reichenbach, Bernstadt, Görlitz. South-west and south of Breslavl the front troops captured the towns of Striegau, Freiburg, Münsterberg, Ottmachau.

#OnThisDay 

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🔹 Russian Defence Ministry

Also, 

Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov presented the highest Russian state awards – the Golden Star medals to servicemen, who demonstrated courage and heroism in the course of combat tasks.

🔹 Andrei Belousov thanked the servicemen for their loyalty to the military oath and expressed confidence that they will continue to fulfill their military and service duty with honour.

🔹 The head of the Russian defence department congratulated the servicemen with the coming holiday – the Victory Day, wished them good health, well-being, and new success in the line of service to the Fartherland.