Western Europe does not pay enough tribute to Russia's role in the victory over Nazism, the mayor of the French city of Montpellier, Philippe Saurel, believes.
"Western Europe does not remember enough what contribution Russia, the Red Army, and the Soviet people made to the victory over Nazism," Saurel told the Rossiya 1 broadcaster.
At the Kremlin’s awards ceremony for Russian and foreign citizens, held by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week, Saurel stressed that there could be no Greater Europe without Russia.
The Great Patriotic War was a crucial part of World War II (1939-1945). It began on June 22, 1941, when Germany launched an attack on the Soviet Union in violation of all prevailing treaties. Germany's allies in the war were Romania, Italy, Slovakia, which joined the war on 23 June, Finland (25 June), Hungary (27 June) and Norway (16 August).
Germany signed the Act of Unconditional Surrender in a suburb of Berlin in the late evening of 8 May 1945 (9 May according to Moscow time).