Putin Remembers Family’s WWII Past in an ‘Intimate’ Op-Ed

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian President Vladimir Putin shed light on his family's hardships during the World War II, in an op-ed published in the Pioneer magazine.

"Frankly, Father did not like even to touch this topic… Usually I would listen to the adults share their memories. It's from these adult conversations that I drew all the information there was to know about the war and everything that had happened to my family, although sometimes they would talk to me directly," Putin wrote.

Putin's father Vladimir was drafted into the Navy in the 1930s and served as a sailor on a submarine in Russia's port city of Sevastopol. He was working at a military plant in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) when the Nazis attacked USSR in 1941. He went to the front as a volunteer and was severely wounded in the leg during an assault:

"The injury was a heavy one. He lived all his life with shell fragments in his leg that hadn't been taken out… They left the smaller bits inside so as not to fracture the bone." 

While his father was at war, Putin's elder brother was taken to an orphanage to be evacuated from the Leningrad siege, but died of diphtheria. His father returned home to find his wife Maria bedridden and close to death. He nursed her back to health and both Putin's mother and father lived to their late 80s.

Putin had a large family on his father's side, but, like most Russian citizens, many of his relatives died in the war. "[Father] had six brothers, five of whom died. It was a disaster for the family. Mother also lost her relatives. I was a late child. She gave birth to me when she was 41," the president wrote.

"Despite all this grief, misery and tragedy, they harbored no hate for the enemy, which was difficult for me to understand. Frankly, it still is… Mother was a very kind, gentle person… She said: 'How can you hate these [German] soldiers? They were ordinary people who died at war too… How can you blame them? They are hard workers like us. It's just that they were sent to fight.'"

The magazine's editor-in-chief, Andrei Kolesnikov, described Putin's article as "very sincere and intimate, maybe even too intimate. Apparently, this topic still strikes a chord with Vladimir Putin," he told RIA Novosti.

Russia will be commemorating those who fell in the World War II at May 9 celebrations. A massive military parade will be held this day in Moscow's Red Square, with contingents from Russia and abroad parading before guests as well as war veterans in a march-past.