Operation Barbarossa mapRussia Marks 70th Anniversary Of The Start Of WWII -- The Telegraph (Video)
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev lays memorial wreaths while Muscovites and residents of St Petersburg light candles to mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II in the Soviet Union.
People across Russia today marked the anniversary their country's involvement in the conflict Russians know as the Great Patriotic War.
It has been 70 years since Nazi tanks crossed into Soviet territory near the town of Brest in Belarus, on 22 June 1941.
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Remembering The Nazi Invasion Of The Soviet Union 70 years Ago
Recalling "Operation Barbarossa" -- CBS News
Russia marks Day of Memory and Sorrow -- Voice of Russia
22 June 1941: Operation Barbarossa -- Robert Morrison, FRC Blog
Pictures: Russia marks 70 years since Nazi invasion -- Straits Times
Nazi invasion of USSR: The war warnings Stalin ignored -- BBC
Remembering the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union -- MSNBC (Photoblog)
My Comment: Sometime in the mid 1970s I was working in the backyard with my father, and he was taking a longer than usual break. He then told me that the war started at this hour 35 years ago. The look that he had and his body language will be one that I will never forget.
He was studying in a university in Kiev when the war broke out, and like all young men of military age (he was 19), he was immediately drafted into the military. Because he was studying math in university, he was put in an artillery unit .... but as he remarked to me on numerous occasions .... in the first two years of the war everyone did everyone's job in order to survive. In the end .... he endured four years of total war that resulted in the complete destruction and death of most of what he cherished and loved.
My father passed away 5 years ago .... but like all Russians we will always remember June 22 .... and in my case I will always remember the look that my father gave me on that day.