MOSCOW (Sputnik) — He added that right after the war, about 4.5 million Soviet service personnel were considered missing in action but that number has significantly decreased since then.
"At the moment, about a million and a half people should [still] be searched for," retired Maj. Gen. Alexander Kirilin, who is also secretary of the Russian Military Historical Society's academic board, said.
The Great Patriotic War, referred to as the Eastern Front in Germany, lasted nearly four years and its battles constituted the largest military confrontation in history. Between 8 million and 13 million people fought in the war over an area that stretched from the Barents Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. The Soviet Union lost some 25 million people in the war.
