27.01 Putin Pays Respects to Brother, Victims of Leningrad Siege

MOSCOW, January 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin honored the victims of the Siege of Leningrad, including his brother, at a ceremony in St. Petersburg on Monday.

Putin walked with several dozen siege survivors in a procession through the Piskaryovskoye cemetery as part of a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was then known.

Following the procession, Putin laid flowers and made the sign of the cross at the mass grave where, it was recently announced, his older brother was interred. Putin’s brother died in childhood during the devastating siege.

Putin, who was born in Leningrad seven years after the end of the war, helped lay a wreath in Russia’s national colors at the Motherland monument, which stands opposite the cemetery’s eternal flame commemorating those who died during the siege.