8 September 2016, 15:28 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – More than 500 Russian sailors and Navy veterans have marked the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from the Nazi blockade during WWII, spokesman for the Russian Navy Igor Dygalo said.
"Over 500 military personnel and veterans of the Navy came to the ceremony of laying wreaths and flowers at the Mother Motherland monument at Piskaryovskoye [Memorial] Cemetery [in St. Petersburg]," Dygalo said on Friday.
Russia marks the end of the Nazi’s siege of Leningrad on January 27.
The siege was undertaken mainly by the German forces during World War II (WWII) starting in September 1941 and was lifted on January 27, 1944, when the Soviet offensive expelled the Nazis from the outskirts of the city. The Russian Baltic Fleet provided 30 percent of aviation power for the final strike against the Nazis.
