Vladimir Putin left flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow on Thursday 9 May, as Russia marked Victory Day. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in the Second World War, but eventually pushed Nazi forces back to Berlin, where Hitler committed suicide and the red Soviet Victory Banner was raised over the Reichstag in 1945. Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender came into force at 11:01 pm on 8 May 1945, marked as “Victory in Europe Day” by France, Britain and the United States. In Moscow, it was already 9 May, which became the Soviet Union’s “Victory Day” in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.