Donetsk, Feb 21 - DAN. Donetsk residents on Friday rallied at the monuments to legendary WWII military leaders Lt-Gen Kuzma Gurov and Col Frantz Grinkevich. The event, traditional for the Donetsk People’s Republic capital in the run up to Defender of the Fatherland Day, gathered some 300 people.
It was attended by DPR parliament speaker Vladimir Bidyovka, DPR Hero Akhra Avidzba, parliamentarians, local officials, World War II and Afghan war veterans and DPR residents.
“We have to honour our veterans and fallen servicemen who had made a big contribution to the victory in the Great Patriotic War,” Bidyovka said. “The defenders of our Motherland triumph as they follow up their forefathers’ glorious cause to fight fascism.”
Participants then laid flowers to the monuments.
Defender of the Fatherland Day was established in Russia in 1922 as Day of the Red Army and Navy. It is an official holiday in Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Ukraine abrogated this holiday. *jk