In a telephone conversation with esteemed president Putin, I sent the sincere admiration and gratitude to the Soviet people for their decisive contribution to victory over fascism, the Cuban president wrote in his twitter account.

Díaz-Canel signed ¨in commemoration to the 80th Anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War¨.

Russia remembers today the Nazi army´s invasion to their territory, beginning of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) which cost 27 million Soviet lives.

With no declaration of war, during early hours on June 22, 1941, more than three million Germans and their allies crossed the border to invade the Soviet Union, in what the fascist strategists called Redbeard Operation, a plan that sought to destroy the country in a brief time.

The Second World War started in September 1939, with Berlin´s invasion to Poland to then move on and occupy other European territories.

During the war, the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR), suffered the loss of more than 27 million lives, the destruction of more than a thousand 710 cities, 70 thousand villages and settlements, apart from incalculable damage to industry and agriculture.

Past May 9, in his speech for the Day of the Victory over German fascism, president Putin called June 22 1941, one of the most tragic dates in Russia´s history.

ef/lcr/mem/ool