Putin Pays Respects to Brother, Victims of Leningrad Siege

MOSCOW, January 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin honored the victims of the Siege of Leningrad, including his brother, at a ceremony in St. Petersburg on Monday.

Putin walked with several dozen siege survivors in a procession through the Piskaryovskoye cemetery as part of a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known.

Following the procession, Putin laid flowers and made the sign of the cross at the mass grave where, it was recently announced, his older brother was interred. Putin’s brother died in childhood during the devastating siege.

Putin, who was born in Leningrad seven years after the end of the war, helped lay a wreath in Russia’s national colors at the Motherland monument, which stands opposite the cemetery’s eternal flame commemorating those who died during the siege.

The Siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany during World War II lasted from September 1941 to January 1944, and was one of the longest and deadliest in history. About 750,000 civilians are estimated to have starved and frozen to death, many of whom are buried in mass graves at the Piskaryovskoye cemetery.

St. Petersburg marks two anniversaries every January: the partial breaking of the siege on January 18, 1943, and the full lifting of the siege on January 27, 1944.