Today members of the Moscow government and Moscow's veterans of the war against Nazi Germany have laid flowers to the Eternal Flame near the Kremlin wall. The official ceremony was dedicated to today's 60th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk, one of the greatest battles of WWII.
Near Kursk, a city 500 kilometers south-west of Moscow, the Soviet army frustrated the last large attack of the Nazi forces on the Eastern front. After the defeat under Stalingrad, Hitlerites made an attempt to destroy the Soviet troops on what is called the Kursk salient and thus regain the strategic initiative. But, in a nearly two-month operation the Soviet army routed 30 German divisions. It was the decisive victory for effecting a drastic turning-point in the war and finally sealing the strategic initiative for the Soviet army.
3,000 participants in the Battle of Kursk now reside in Moscow. Twelve of them are Heroes of the Soviet Union, the supreme military award in the former USSR.